Heavenly father,
consider your protecting hands over our way through this your world – on which we walk to meet you.
Give us the courage and the strength to go the way of humility and awe – so that our actions and work pay attention to this path – to others and thus to you.
They may be recognize you in all your power and love that you have in particular revealed to us through your Son Jesus Christ.

That love that you can pass through all parts of the world in the form of your breath. Let also grow our love to each other, so that it will become a sign for all your creatures.

Make us attentive to the many tasks that you call us daily.
Father – we need you and your protecting hand.

Amen

 

O Lord my God, my Father in heaven,
how nice that you see me.
You know me.
You see me when I’m scared,
you see me if I hide
and do not admit what I’ve done.
You see me when I am alone and dreaming of great things
and of the life that lies before me.
As well, you see me!

I can not take a step
in which you can not come with me.
I can not think a word
which you don’t hear, before I say it.

As in two big hands you hold me.
I am safe in it like a bird in the nest,
and sometimes it seems to me
that I was trapped inside like a bird in a cage.
Lord, sometimes I feel spooky in your big hand,
where I’m trapped, and I want to escape from it.

I’m thinking about the great world,
on the artificial moons that people make
about the spaceships that chase out into space,
and think that we have people actually no longer needed you.

But while I think that, you’re around me
and I’m in your two big hands.
I think sometimes that it had actually does not make sense that I exist.

Then I’m sick of this life and would gladly throw it away
I have not chosen it by myself.
But I know that if I throw away my life and come to the dead,
then I meet you there again
and I’m caught in your hands again
and am not escaped neither my tasks nor you.

Sometimes I dream of the great life.
I dream of to be rich – or beautiful – or powerful,
so that the people see and admire me – and are talking about me.

Not only that one in my street
but all and all people around the world,
then it seems to me so stupid and small,
the life I should lead, in which it always says:
Thou shalt, thou shalt not.
You can, you can not.

And I want to run away from all this.
But I know these are dreams.
Your hand is strong.
Your hand upholds me in my school
or in my work
or in your home,
and everywhere where my small tasks are.

It is good, Lord, that you hold me.
Sometimes I think: Now, no one does see me.
No one does see me – and you, Lord, are not there, too.

When it is dark or when the curtains are drawn on my window.
And I know also how stupid it is to think
that you, God need the sunlight or a lamp to see me,
as if you had eyes like a man.

But it’s good, Lord, that you see me.
How should I be able to live
if you would not pay attention on me,
if you with your big hands and with your love
be not always and everywhere around me?

When I look at myself and look at my hand
or my face or my shape in the mirror,
then I know: That you’ve done everything – and it’s good to know that.

I know nothing about it,
what has happened to me when I was a small child,
when I could not even go out or talk.

I do not know how it happened that I grew in my mother’s womb.
You have done this all, too.
I am created from your good and great thoughts.

Give me awe in my heart and in my thoughts.
Reverence for the body, where my mother carried me,
and reverence for your mysterious thoughts.

Because I want to thank you for everything you have given to me,
for my body, mind and soul,
for my skill and my healthy force.

I would like to thank you so much more for other things, too.

I thank you that you have determined my path of life
and not an accident, not the stars, which people asks around me,
not even the strange power which we call fate.

I thank you for every day that I can experience,
because it comes from your good hand.

I pray thee, my God, help me that I’m not complaining,
because I’m not so talented
not so beautiful
or not so healthy like others.

Let me be thankful that you have made me in the way I am,
let me be thankful and praise you.

Lord – silence wraps around me on that early morning
Only the song of the birds and the church’s morning bells can be heard.
Thank you have given me this day.
The silence makes me anxious and thoughtful.
How quiet it is here –
and how many people have no peace at this very moment.
Living in fear and persecution,
fear the next attack,
the next impact of a projectile …
How many fear this day,
fear the renewed exertions,
the work – which brings too little or no pay,
to live from it.
The stress with some supervisor or masters,
that surely comes today again –
and the agony of the often invisible chains,
the one take the air we breathe.
Concern for friends and relatives,
which are close in reality but yet seem as far away
or are far away and yet seem so close,
the anger or sorrow – which touches us unprepared .

You create every moment new –
and no one comes ever back in the same way again

That you are in and with me –
that makes me happy
And maybe I can give forward this little happiness as a gift
someone who needs it that day
.
Let me be in your charge – o Lord
Amen

God, You are a God of life
and you want that we – men and women
might have life in abundance in your creation.

We come to you full of fear,
helpless and powerless
considering the violence around us and in us.

Convert us in the depths of our hearts
to people which bring Your peace into our world.

Bless with Your Spirit
the creative imagination and the patience
of all people who are with us on the way
to your kingdom of peace.

Send Your Spirit in the hearts of those
which are caught in the web of violence,
– as perpetrators or victims –
and never let us give up the search
for a talk with them.

Thou who art our father and mother
and have exemplified us
how we overcome violence
and can create peace
in our brother Jesus Christ

Amen.

Ik ben de vriend van dag en nacht:
Ik zal er zijn.
Voor elke nood, voor elke klacht:
Ik zal er zijn.

Een vriend in voor- en tegenspoed:
Ik zal er zijn.
Die altijd voor je opendoet:
Ik zal er zijn.

Klop en mijn deur zal opengaan:
Ik zal er zijn.
Vraag en mijn hart zal openstaan:
Ik zal er zijn.

Klop aan mijn deur en schaam je niet:
Ik zal er zijn.
In levensangst, in zielsverdriet:
Ik zal er zijn.

Voor elk verlangen, elk gemis:

Ik zal er zijn.

De God die altijd met je is:

Ik zal er zijn.

Dit is je troost, je zekerheid:
Ik zal er zijn.
Dit is mijn naam, nu en altijd:

Ik zal er zijn!