This is The Peace Prayer; a prayer I read daily…

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace: where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.   O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console, to be understood as to understand, to be loved as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.”

My wife and I got together in March, 1975.  I became aware she had this damned disease during the summer of 1994.  My wife died because of this damned disease November 6, 2016.  After she died, I felt as though a piece of me had died along with her.  I felt as though I was no longer whole or complete without her.  In early 2019 I decided I had had enough of living a life centered on loss and grief.  I attended a church service where the preacher hosted a spiritual exercise where we sat still for ten minutes.  If our minds started to wander, we were to focus on a pre-selected word to bring us back to the present moment.  The minister would tell us when time expired.  The word I choose was ‘receive’.   The ten minutes seemed to flash by for me in mere seconds.  Here’s what was going on in my mind as I did that ten minute spiritual exercise…

There are two important thoughts in The Peace Prayer for me.  The first idea is that where there is darkness I am to bring light.  I was living in a world of darkness and I needed to enter the light.  For me the Light is God.  So I had to bring God into my life.  The second idea is that it is in giving we receive peace.  I decided to “Let go and Let God”, as a few people had suggested I do.  Here’s what I did to let go of my wife and give my wife to God. I visualized wrapping her in an electric-blue afghan decorated with some of her favorite things: a waterfall, a lighthouse, cardinals and blue birds, deer and chipmunks, rainbows, butterflies, purple petunias, lilac blooms and candles.  I don’t like the idea of God sitting on a Judgment Throne, so I visualized God sitting in a rocking chair on the porch of a Victorian house.  I approached my God and gave my God my beloved wife.  My God received my wife from me with a melancholy smile.  In return, my God gave me peace of mind and peace of heart.  Nowadays I usually feel whole again.  I miss my wife a lot, and I think of her every day, but I no longer feel I need her to be complete.

I want to thank everyone one who reads this; you have all touched me and inspired me without being aware of the help you have given me.  I love each and every one of you, and I hope you find contentment and peace beyond understanding as you live a complete life.