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The Long Night
Whether you have had many major surgeries or you are facing your very first one, you can appreciate that the night before surgery is a difficult time. We tell ourselves to be calm and to trust, but either our imagination takes wings and imagines things that could go wrong, or worry refuses to stay in the 'sock drawer' and leads us deeper into anxiety.
The 'long night' is a trial. It's about control, isn't it? We want/need to be in control - but surgery forces us to relinquish the illusion that we are in control of anything.
Recently I came across this classic "Prayer of Abandonment" by Charles De Foucauld. The next time you face a long night, may it give you strength:
"I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
And in all your creatures-
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give
myself, to surrender myself into your
hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
For you are my Father."
In faith,
Pastor Tim
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