Jim Hecker

​Over the years I have shared the following prayer with my congregations. I do not know its author or what publication it was originally printed in, but these words are especially relevant today.

A Prayer for the Season:
(One of my favorites)

​There are things I need this Christmas, Lord, special things that can’t be wrapped with silver and tied with gold. I need them more this year than ever before because I am feeling frustrated and lonely in the middle of multiple choices and perpetual changes, in the midst of too much fear and too little faith.
 
I need the gift of concentration, Lord, so that I may be able to stay with one task at a time without being overwhelmed by all that needs to be done.
 
I need the courage to see and hear and touch others with a tenderness that transcends those feelings of separation we all carry around inside us…like wounds in need of healing.
 
Mostly, Lord, I need the gift of love that lit the sky two thousand years ago…that kind of love that embraces shepherds and kings…the kind of love that came to the stable and stayed through the cross…the kind of love that says “Thy will be done.”
Amen