Dear Jesus,
I hear your call to me. I feel so deeply how you love and desire me to be with you in this journey. I watch as you call the disciples lovingly and with such friendship. You teach them and send them out into the world to heal and spread your message.

As I read about how you call the fishermen on the shore, I too hear your call. I want to go with you. I follow you down the beach, and you stop and turn so gently and look at me with such love. “What do you want?” you ask me.

I stand there on the beach in my bare feet and try to articulate what I feel in my heart. I want to go with you where you are going. I want to make choices in my life that bring me closer to you and make my life more like yours. I want to take your hand and walk with you into towns, into marketplaces, even into the places in my own life that frighten me.

I feel your call to me in such a direct, personal way and I see you loving me so deeply as I try to conform my life to yours. I know I am making a decision to adapt my life, to see things with your eyes, to make choices differently. And I see you watching me with love as I make these changes.

My dear, loving friend: Thank you for calling me to be with you so closely. Thank you for wanting me with you. Thank you for giving me this deep desire to be with you. My love for you is growing with each passing week, as we become better and dearer friends and as I feel your love for me. I want to be with you in a new and deeper way. Teach me. Let me live each day realizing that you are with me always, even when I fail in my desires. Allow me to feel you leading me in front and guiding me from behind.

Stay with me, dear one. Let me feel your love. Let me say “yes” to you. Thank you for staying so close to my side.