We run our website the way we wished the whole internet worked: we provide high quality original content with no ads. We are funded by your direct support for ReKnew and our vision. Please consider supporting this project.
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
Sarah (Rosenau) Korf via Compfight
For those of you observing the Lenten season (and for those of you who are not), we thought we would share this poem by Jan Richardson.
Rend Your Heart
A Blessing for Ash Wednesday
To receive this blessing,
all you have to do
is let your heart break.
Let it crack open.
Let it fall apart
so that you can see
its secret chambers,
the hidden spaces
where you have hesitated
to go.
Your entire life
is here, inscribed whole
upon your heart’s walls:
every path taken
or left behind,
every face you turned toward
or turned away,
every word spoken in love
or in rage,
every line of your life
you would prefer to leave
in shadow,
every story that shimmers
with treasures known
and those you have yet
to find.
It could take you days
to wander these rooms.
Forty, at least.
And so let this be
a season for wandering
for trusting the breaking
for tracing the tear
that will return you
to the One who waits
who watches
who works within
the rending
to make your heart
whole.
Category: General
Tags: Ash Wednesday, Easter, Jan Richardson, Lent, Prayer, Repentance
Related Reading
Your Prayers Matter
My conviction is that many Christians do not pray as passionately as they could because they don’t see how it could make any significant difference. They pray, but they often do so out of sheer obligation and without the sense of urgency that Scripture consistently attaches to prayer. The problem, I believe, is that many…
Praying for Peace During Political Hostility
Jesus calls his disciples to be “peacemakers” (Mt 5:9). During this season of political animosity, we have a great opportunity to practice being disciples by offering an alternative way of interacting with each other. One primary way we do this is by using the unique authority we have to affect the world through prayer to…
Are angels involved in answering prayer?
READER: In Daniel 10 we read of an angel telling Daniel that he was delayed from giving him the answer to his prayer because of spiritual warfare going on. My question is, are angels always involved in answering our prayers?
The Cross Reveals God’s Love
The central way Christ functions as the perfect image and exact representation of God is by dying on the cross. While Christ’s entire life manifests the true God, Christ came primarily to die. It was his death that defeated the devil and freed us from bondage. The one who does what is sinful is of…
Why Is It So Much Easier For Jesus To Perform Miracles When He Said We Would Do Even Greater Things? (podcast)
In this episode Greg discusses the miracles of Jesus, particularly looking at why we struggle to perform them. Episode 27 http://traffic.libsyn.com/askgregboyd/Episode_0027.mp3
Bowing to the American Flag. Literally.
Kurt Willems shared this interesting item he found on Amazon. In the product description it admonishes us to: Submit yourself to the Prayer Bench and open up your life to receive more of God. Hmmmmmm. How about we just submit ourselves to God?