April Prayers | Good Friday Edition
“The LORD himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.”
GREETINGS, FRIENDS.
April finds us journeying through Lent collectively as well as the lents in our own lives or those we love - a sudden illness, a job loss, the death of someone close, the war in Ukraine… May you find in these dark moments, when perhaps you can't even pray, that, if nothing else, God is present in your pain and will not leave you alone.
IX Jesus falls the third time
He weeps with you and with you he will stay
When all your staying power has run out
You can’t go on, you go on anyway.
He stumbles just beside you when the doubt
That always haunts you, cuts you down at last
And takes away the hope that drove you on.
This is the third fall and it hurts the worst
This long descent through darkness to depression
From which there seems no rising and no will
To rise, or breathe or bear your own heart beat.
Twice you survived; this third will surely kill,
And you could almost wish for that defeat
Except that in the cold hell where you freeze
You find your God beside you on his knees.
-Malcolm Guite