Image source: https://praedictix.com/8-october-fall-foliage-views-you-dont-want-to-miss/

Every Wednesday we invite you to Pause & Pray with us. Today’s Pause & Pray is written/curated by Maeve Perrin.

PRAY

Prayer For a Changing Season — by Maeve Perrin

Holy and merciful God, today we turn our attention to your creation and witness the seasons transitioning from summer to autumn. Thank you, Creator, for a world with such beauty and variety. Thank you for setting everything in its correct time and authoring rhythms of sacred growth and rest.
We lift up to you the season we are in in our life, work, learning, and growing. We pray for this season and for whatever you are calling us to next. Prepare us. When we don’t know where to go, help us seek you. Lord, we acknowledge the questions and uncertainties that come with changing seasons. We surrender to you our fears and apprehensions. Journey with us, God, your presence is a comfort in uncertainty.
As we ponder our current season we ask, what new thing are you calling us to do? What in our lives are you calling us to cease, or continue? Guide our steps, Lord. Help us be open to things not looking the way we intended or expected. Give us boldness and courage to follow your leading, and may we find joy along the way.
Amen.

MEDITATE

For a New Beginning — by John O’Donohue
In out-of-the-way places of the heart,
Where your thoughts never think to wander,
This beginning has been quietly forming,
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire,
Feeling the emptiness growing inside you,
Noticing how you willed yourself on,
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the gray promises that sameness whispered,
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent,
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream,
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not yet clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is at one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure;
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk;
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm,
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Fall Leaves Lectio Divina:
Take a moment to consider this week’s artwork. Take a deep breath.
Where is your eye drawn? Is there an aspect of this image that immediately speaks to you?
Consider the colors and texture of the leaves. Where is there beauty in change?
Notice the sun beaming through the branches. In what ways can you begin to notice God’s presence, love, and divine plan peeking into your life amid questioning, upheaval, lack of clarity, or worry? Where do you most desire God’s light would shine for you today?

LISTEN

“Take It Easy” by The Porter’s Gate ft. Matt Maher and Paul Zach