Lord I come before You, destitute of your Holy Spirit who is far from me. My own soul is a desert landscape devoid of your holy presence. All that remains is flesh filled with anger and resentment and toil and despair. My heart is stone locked in bitterness. I come to You my Sculptor and ask You to chip away at my marble heart to free your good creation inside the stone, a living statue filled with Your Breath.

I do not want to eat the fruit of going my own way -- no never! Yet I am not willing to die or live for you. This yieldedness is an impossible effort for mere mortals. Only you can sustain me and grant to me a willing spirit as Your gift of mercy. And this I ask of You believing that whatsoever I should ask in Your name, according to Your will, shall be done for me. Amen.

My dear, angry child,

Do you think that if you rage at Me I will respond in kind? Imagine the most loving person you know, would that person rage back at you? Am I not infinitely more kind? Is my ego to be damaged? Do I thrive on your approval? Is a parent offended by a toddler's tantrum?

If you do not begin at a point of honesty, you cannot move on toward change and healing. Discard your pretense and theology. Replace them with candor and transparency, for you know I see through the impostor to the lovely creature I have created in you.

Come. Breathe. Speak. Listen. Yield. Heal.

With infinite lovingkindness,
Your Abba

Dear One,

Do not be dismayed at your shortcomings and failings. It pleases me to leave many of them as they are. I use sinful, messed up people ...

I like to be the Perfect One!

Beloved Lord Jesus ...

I exhale, releasing all the things I treasure.  They rise like balloons, wafting weightlessly like countless rainbows against a clear blue sky. Each balloon a possession, a thing that I call mine. How I long for the delight of possessing nothing. Even you, my Lord will never be possessed. Yet I believe in the Imperishable Seed eternally buried in the deepest part of my heart. The Living Seed that is my deposit guaranteeing an eternal love affair with the One I love.

I also breathe up and out a few black balloons -- the hurts and lies that hold me captive -- releasing them into Your sky.  And I see your finger touching and bursting each one to fall away in tatters, leaving only a myriad of iridescent rainbows in Your care!