Gripped

As a person with cerebral palsy, I struggle daily with keeping up, fitting in, and pressing on. I need help daily with routine activities, such as washing my hair, fixing my meals, and tying my shoes. I need to be reminded daily of treasures in jars of clay. The power to live my everyday life is from God and not from me. I’m so glad God’s Word comes to his people primarily as a grace book and not a grade book.

I am a person who loves words. I am a person who prays my words will be used to help and bless others. Here is a prayer I first wrote in 2011. The words still apply now, a decade later.

Father God,

I praise you again today for your omniscience. I praise you for your omnipresence. I thank you for your Spirit who enlivens, animates, and encourages. I praise you because even when I am hidden away from the human eye, you are with me. You sustain, comfort, guide, and direct. You have sustained me, comforted me, guided me, and directed me for many long years.

I am grateful your presence with me doesn’t depend on my past or my current social status. You know me from the inside out. My human reputation waxes and wanes, soars and plummets. You are my solid rock, my fortress, and my deliverer.

I am secure in you.

I am supported by you.

I am equipped through your supreme power to endure and persist.

As your possession, formed by your hand, I cannot flee from you—no matter what.

I could travel the greatest distance to the remotest site on Earth and still be reachable to you.

You infuse me with hope in the midst of my despair.

You provide me peace in the midst of my wondering, questing, and probing, my wandering, adventure, and pilgrimage.

I can rest without knowing all the answers because you are near me.

I can have confidence because you have been faithful. You are faithful. You will be faithful.

You are the hope who doesn’t disappoint me, even when my feelings fail, falter, and fall down flat.

I worship you, O Lord, for your continued grace and abiding love, even when things are far from lovely and put together and organized. The ongoing nature of your intimate presence is an attribute worthy of my praise.

To you be all glory.

You’ve got me in your grip.