Prayer for Forbearance

Prayer for the Week of December 12 - Prayer for Forbearance

Gracious Love, grant us forbearance so we may offer ourselves and each other spaciousness to turn again in awareness and responsibility and to make amends. May we make space for ourselves when we’re irritable and stressed, space to rest, to return to the home of our hearts, to breathe, to not add fuel to another’s raging or grieving fire. Gracious Love, may we have forbearance when those around us are weary, and make way for all of us to rest, to return to the home of our hearts, to breathe, to observe those harsh fires die down into embers. May we remember forbearance is not the path with patterns of abuse or oppression, because forbearance asks us to remember we, too, have been less than our best selves, making momentarily bad choices rather than willfully choosing a long-term path of harming others to exalt oneself at the expense of others. Gracious Love, may we use forbearance wisely, not to oppress, but to free ourselves and others from expectations of damnation or perfection, allowing us all to be messy, to have difficult days, to say and do wrong things, every once in a while. May we breathe into spaciousness and graciousness that heals and offers us all a little more room to turn again in love. Amen.