A Covenant Prayer

"I am no longer my own, but Yours.

Put me to what You will,

Rank me with whom You will.

Put me to doing,

Put me to suffering.

Let me be employed by You or laid aside for You,

Exalted for You or brought low by You.

Let me have all things,

Let me have nothing.

I freely and heartily yield all things to Your pleasure and disposal.

And now, O glorious and blessed God,

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,

You are mine, and I am Yours.

So be it.

And the covenant which I have made on earth,

Let it be ratified in heaven.

Amen."

 - adapted from John Wesley's Covenant Service 

(taken from Sing to the Lord, #484)

I'm always looking for things to write about on my blog, and yesterday I knew I had to write about the words of a good friend.  He and his wife are headed today to the Mayo Clinic to find out if the frequent seizures he's been having will require brain surgery or can be controlled with medication.  I asked him how I could pray, what the ideal outcome was.  I was expecting his response to be about the details of his treatment, but he said, "I want to be able to respond to God's call on my life."

He has some specifics in mind.  He wants to be able to resume classes at seminary, to return to work, to be the husband he wants to be, to support his wife.  More than anything, though, I think he wants to move past this period of being almost completely incapacitated for any kind of work.  Even social interaction is exhausting for him and has to be limited to short periods of time.

In my own life, I've been hoping and praying for some time now that my church will allow me to participate in the creation of some rather extensive discipleship curriculum they have been working on.  Previously, I was hoping for a paying job, but now I've decided that even working as a volunteer would give me a project to work on and some great people to work with.  However, I talked to the pastor in charge of developing the curriculum yesterday, and he said that I might possibly be able to get involved sometime before the end of the year.  Well, it's June now, so I probably need to accept that I won't be participating any time soon.

The words of John Wesley have given me strength over and over again, especially the phrase, "Let me be employed by You or laid aside by You."  I find myself again not employed in the manner toward which I have been working for so long.  Like my friend, I just want to be able to respond to God's call on my life.

As my friend and his wife travel to Minnesota today for a difficult and scary few weeks of testing and working with doctors, I am praying for not only the restoration of his physical body, but also the restoration of his ability to participate fully in the work God has called him to.  I pray that both he and his wife would find peace in freely and heartily yielding all things to God.

And as I begin a new week of motherhood and wifehood (?), I pray that God would renew in me the strength of the covenant I have made by saying, "I am no longer my own, but Yours."  I pray that God would show me how to live faithfully where I am right now and, like my friends, freely and heartily yield all things to God.

My favorite of my friends' engagement photos - check out that spider web!

(Photo taken by Forest Fisk)