Dear Lord,
How can I thank you? How can I express the joy and gratitude in my heart? It wasn’t enough for you to forgive me. You now promise to be with me, with me always, with me in the healing and wholeness I so desire.

Lord, when you let me see the many complicated patterns in my life, I felt so ashamed, so embarrassed. Then you told me that that isn’t the whole picture of who I am — I am a sinner who is loved by you. Now you tell me that still isn’t the whole picture. I’m a loved sinner, on the path to healing, because of your faithful love for me.

How can I thank you? What can I say when you tell me you won’t abandon me because I’m unfinished? What feelings fill me when I imagine your sticking with me in the slow, day-to-day growth of healing?

As you have been with me throughout this retreat and have freely given me what you yourself have placed in my heart to ask, I now turn to you again and beg. Please let me hear the depth of your desire to accompany me along the path to wholeness, to holiness. Please begin your healing in me. Please let your healing free me so that I can serve you as you deserve, with more and more of my heart.