Last weekend, we went to Portland and conducted a 3-day Strong Bonds Couples retreat. And, a friend and I went to the famously known bookstore. Powell’s City of Books is an independent bookstore in Portland, Oregon, that fills a whole city block with more than a million new, used, and out of print books. (My kind of heaven on earth with a cup of java, too!!).
As usual, I was on the look-out in finding used books. And, I purchased two books: “Blog Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community” by Joy Deangdeelert Cho and “The Notre Dame Book of Prayer.” And in this book on prayer, I found several jewels of prayer!!
You see, prayer is one of the most important spiritual practices of the Christian faith. Prayer is like roasting coffee. I mean, roasting coffee transforms the chemical and physical properties of green coffee beans into roasted coffee products; likewise, prayer transforms the one who prays it through causing one’s heart to expand and to change in colorful love, tasteful faith and a smell of hope. I came across several prayers read in the book. And so, because of my own experience of divorce, this prayer slowly roasted my heart holy. I hope you too will be blessed with this holy roasting prayer, Prayer for Those Experiencing Divorce:
Dear God,
Those who show pity but forget compassion,
I forgive.
Those who feel I have sinned,
I am weak, or I am at fault,
I forgive.
Those who pull away from me–
whether from their own confusion,
their own embarrassment,
their own sense of marital vulnerability;
or their inability to speak to my pain,
I forgive.
Those who label me unloveable,
I forgive.
Those who see me as “too available”
and assume I will participate in immoral behavior,
I forgive.
Those who reach out to the widowed
with casseroles,
inclusion in social activities,
and deep expressions of sorrow–
but forget my presence
in that same lonely and confused community,
I forgive.
Those who make me the object of their gossip
as they explore and distort my life story,
I forgive.
The Church
who sees me as neither married, single, nor divorced,
who sees me as some faceless half couple,
who labels me as a “failed marriage participant,”
who finds the need to annul that which was
once very dear to me,
I forgive.
Society, as it labels my family “broken,”
I forgive.
Friends who have left me for whatever reasons,
I forgive.
Parents and children,
who are embarrassed and ashamed of my singleness
and life choices,
I forgive.
My absent spouse,
to whom I am still tied by confusing emotions,
who left me with a mixture of
good and bad experiences and memories,
who wounded and harmed me in very deep ways,
I forgive.
Myself
And whatever senses of personal failure
I have appropriated,
for my shortcomings,
my very real humanity,
my lapses into despair,
my self-pity journeys,
my unbridled anger,
my discovery of jealousy, envy,
and other undesirable character traits,
my desire to cling
to unhealthy but familiar life patterns
instead of looking with hope and trust to you,
I forgive.
(Written by Vicki Wells Bedard and William E. Rabior in The Notre Dame Book of Prayer, 268-269).
