\u201cSummer\u2019s lease hath all too short a date,\u201d said William Shakespeare in his famous Sonnet 18 (\u201cShall I compare thee to a summer\u2019s day?\u201d). Boy, does it ever.<\/p>\n
Another summer will soon be gone, seemingly before it even got started. Where did it go? As short as summer\u2019s lease is, the change of seasons gives us the opportunity to mark and measure ourselves and our lives in prayer. To that end, here are five prayers that may be appropriate as your summer comes closer to an end:<\/p>\n
1) A Prayer of Thanks<\/strong><\/p>\n Thank you, God, for the pleasures of summer, Thank you for days at the lake Thank you for the fireworks of thunderstorms, Amen.<\/p>\n 2) A Confession<\/strong><\/p>\n God of grace, 3) A Prayer of Praise Praise to You for the earth\u2019s rotation, Praise to You for the order of the universe, 4) A Prayer of Abandonment<\/strong><\/p>\n O Lord, my God, It is a disappointment, Lord. I give you my hopes and my disappointments. Amen.<\/p>\n 5) A Prayer of Petition<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cAs Summer into Autumn slips,\u201d<\/p>\n O give me grace today (first line from Emily Dickinson)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cSummer\u2019s lease hath all too short a date,\u201d said William Shakespeare in his famous Sonnet 18 (\u201cShall I compare thee to a summer\u2019s day?\u201d). Boy, does it ever. Another summer will soon be gone, seemingly before it even got started. Where did it go? As short as summer\u2019s lease is, the change of seasons gives […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":31184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[393],"tags":[30,68],"ppma_author":[465],"class_list":["post-25096","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-seasonal-prayers","tag-prayer","tag-summer"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n
\nthe bright sunny days and perfect moonlit evenings,
\nthe smells of mowed grass and air thick with rain.<\/p>\n
\nand evenings chasing fireflies,
\nfor vacations and festivals,
\npicnics and cookouts,
\nbaseball and concerts and swimsuits and popsicles.<\/p>\n
\nfor watermelon sweetness,
\nfor summer\u2019s pace and summer\u2019s grace,
\nfor all your beauty and power, faithfulness and fecundity
\ndisplayed in summer,<\/p>\n
\nforgive my frantic pace,
\nmy failure to find
\na \u201csummer place\u201d
\namid the traffic of my days,
\nthe stubbornness of settled ways,
\nand too-cluttered mind,
\nI let this summer get away.<\/p>\n
\n<\/strong>Praise to You, God, for long warm days,
\nfor buzzing bees and chirping crickets,
\nfor shade trees and gentle breezes.<\/p>\n
\nfor our cycle around the sun,
\nfor \u201csun, moon, and stars in their courses above.\u201d<\/p>\n
\nthe variety of the seasons,
\nand the gift of another summer.<\/p>\n
\nhow can another summer have passed so quickly?
\nHow can vacations be ending,
\nand children be heading off to school,
\nand store displays already leaping into the next season?
\nHow can so many good intentions I had
\nat the beginning of this summer
\nhave been mowed down like so much grass?
\nWhat happened?<\/p>\n
\nIt is a grief. \u2028I feel a sense of frustration and loss
\nthat so many of my plans are unfulfilled.
\nSo one by one, I will name them\u2014
\npleasures I planned to enjoy,
\nchores I intended to accomplish,
\nplaces I wanted to see,
\nso much I had hoped to do\u2014
\nand leave each and every one of them with you.<\/p>\n
\nPlease cleanse me from regret,
\nheal my discouragement,
\nand turn me toward the next season
\nfree from the burden of all my didn\u2019t-get-dones.<\/p>\n
\nTo rise and turn as Summer\u2019s leaves
\nDraw life and strength from heavenly rays.<\/p>\n