A Thought / Prayer for the Day - December 4, 2024
Rev. Dr. Garrett J. Andrew

I am often caught between two voices. One whispers, “You are nothing. Look at your failures, your flaws, your fear. You are unworthy, fraudulent, a shadow of what you pretend to be.” The other hums softly, “You are everything. You are love, breath, light. You are fearfully and wonderfully made.”

I stand between them, arms outstretched, trying to hold them both. Not to silence one or amplify the other anymore (because after fighting the first voice so long I know it doesn’t go away), but to listen. Because the first voice? It is mine, and it is more than mine. It is the voice of temptation as ancient as Eden. The second voice? It is also mine, and it is more than mine too. It is the voice of the Divine echoing within me. And in the tension of their interplay, I am being made whole.

It’s a brutal grace, this middle space. The first voice claws and bites, the second cradles and soothes. I stumble in the wrestling match, but every fall seems to drop me deeper into truth: I am not my fear, nor my failure. I am not my brilliance, nor my beauty. I am what remains when all those things fall away.

So today, I sit down with my demons, invite them to tea, and dare to make friends. “What do you want from me?” I ask. They don’t answer, not in words, but in the sharp sting of memory, the ache of wounds that never quite healed. And I realize—they are my woundedness, begging to be seen, longing to be loved, and never feeling like I’m enough.

I look into their eyes, hollow but shining, and I recognize myself. I have fought them for so long, and now I see the battle was never the point. The point is this: grace washes even the darkest parts of me. The love I seek outside has always sought me inside.

In this moment, there is no roaring, no shame, no striving—just a breath, a heartbeat, a stillness that reminds me: I am held.

O Voice that speaks in whispers and roars,
teach me to sit with both,
to hear the storm and the stillness
and find myself somewhere in between.

O Light that pierces my shadows,
reveal the sacred even in my darkness—
not to shame,
but to heal,
not to erase,
but to transform.

I am not my brokenness,
and yet my cracks are holy—
the places where grace flows in,
and where love seeps out.

O Holy One, who holds my contradictions,
remind me that my demons
are nothing more than wounds waiting for love.

Help me dare to love them.
To let them speak,
not to rule me,
but to remind me of what I have overcome
and what is yet to be redeemed.

O Love that seeks,
even when I hide,
remind me that the journey home
is not one of miles,
but of grace.

Let me sit here,
with my fears and my hopes,
with my doubts and my faith,
and know that I am yours.

Even as I stumble,
even as I doubt,
you are the voice beneath my voice,
the truth beneath my lies,
the love beneath all things.

Yes, I am walking home,
and you—the One I seek—
have been walking toward me all along.