O God of all seasons and senses
grant me your sense of timing
to submit gracefully
and rejoice quietly
in the turn of the seasons

In this season of short days and long nights
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of waiting:
of the snow joining the mystery
of the hunkered-down seeds
growing in their sleep
watched over by gnarled-limbed, grandparent trees
resting from autumn’s staggering energy;
of the silent, whilrling earth
circling to race back home to the sun.
O God, grant me your sense of timing.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of endings:
children growing,
friends leaving,
jobs concluding,
stages finishing,
grieving over,
blaming over,
excuses over.
O God grant me your sense of timing.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of beginnings;
that such waitings and endings
may be a starting place,
a planting of seeds
which bring to birth
what is ready to be born -
something right and just and different,
a new song,
a deeper relationship,
a fuller love -
in the fullness of your time.
O God grant me your sense of timing.

—from Guerrillas of Grace by Ted Loder