A Prayer For Friday

Father, what a wonderful and painful world we live in.Stretched tightly between heaven and earth, with earth filled with heaven but still battered by earth,

we long for more.

Longing is good. Not longing for gratification of taste buds or nerve endings, but for satisfaction.

Satisfaction of the soul, deep and abiding like the smell of winter coming on the breeze.

Deep and abiding like the cold dark New River running just behind my grandparent's house.

Deep and abiding like the whisper of a child the first time they say "I love you."

Remind us that we are under no obligation to tinker with gratification, but we are invited to satisfaction.

To move from eating the strained peas of self-fulfillment into the satisfaction of losing it all to gain You.

Invite us to be satisfied, because gratification is simply too small a word to speak in a world stretched.

Between heaven and earth.

Amen.