Prayer for Acceptance of Change

Date: October 1, 2021
Lord, we know well that all life is
in flux. Will not this green springy
lawn we tread on today soon wither
and turn to sparse, anemic blades?
   Will not the bright sunflowers
whose petal-haloed heads seek the sky
soon droop like stricken sentinels
on shriveled stalks? We know
these lessons, and yet we resist.
What of the faces we see no more,
those once we saw almost weekly
in the same church pew? We miss them;
we would wish them back. We know
this is impossible, and yet we resist.
   How we linger over what is gone;
how we long for the comfortable
and familiar, settling into them
as we would into an old stuffed
chair that remembers our contours.
How we resist the new and unknown,
fearing them as we would the turn
of a corner on a zigzag street in a
foreign city scented with wood smoke
and cinnamon. Lord, You were ever
on the move; You knew how not to linger.
   Help us learn how not to cling to
what cannot be regained or restored
in this life. Help us be open to new faces,
new voices and the new people sitting in
that particular pew where once sat those
we see no more. For all of it, every blade
of grass, every petal from every sunflower,
every face we ever loved, is joined in You.
Why ever should we fear change when
our one true constant is You?