A Blessing For When You’re Different Now

As we’ve reflected all week on what it means to be broken - by the world, by our own decisions - now we are getting set up for this coming week when we talk about healing.

As we prepare to lean into the newness, it may be helpful to reflect on how we’re different now than we were. Those changes may be small or may be big. Some of the changes have added pain; some have brought shifts in relationships. Ask the Spirit to speak to you now as you reflect on this poem. Can you be open to receiving a blessing as you embrace these changes?

A Blessing For When You’re Different Now
Kate Bowler

Blessed are you, dear one, when the world around you has changed.

Everything is different now,

your body, your age, your relationships, your job, your faith.

The things that once brought you joy.

The way you existed in the world.

The people you love and trust and rely on.

Things have changed and it would be silly to imagine you haven’t changed with them.

You are not who you once were.

Bless that old self,

they did such a good job with what they knew.

They made you who you were,

all the mistakes and heartbreak and naiveté and courage.

And blessed are who you are now,

you who aren’t pretending things are the same,

who continue to grow and stretch and show up to your life as it really is:

wholehearted, vulnerable, maybe a little afraid.

So blessed are we, the changed.