When I pay my rent, utilities, and phone bill, and I buy the necessary groceries, and I have a bit left over for a small extravagance, do you want my hot-fudge sundae, God?
Do you want me deprived or prosperous? Do you want me confident or needy? When I see the poorest of the poor among your children, do you want my pity or my activity?
Do you want me to volunteer among the elderly, even though it would be (almost literally) the blind leading the blind?
Do you want me to show up for the homeless or at protest rallies or the Red Cross?
Do you want me to take up chanting, make a gratitude journal, or crochet blankets for children in third-world countries?
Or do you want me to be like Brother Lawrence, wanting nothing but what you want in things both great and small… not even taking up a piece of straw from the ground if I thought you didn’t want me to but running to pick it up out of love for you if that is what you want?
Do you want me to wake up every morning and cheerfully to give you the day, confident that you will guide me to the place where joy meets grace, and certain, as I take my rest, that you have done precisely that?
Do you want my sickness and my pain? They are of no use to me except to waken my awareness of your presence.
Do you want my heart? I grant it to you freely, hoping you can chip away the crust and shine your light into the corners.
Do you want my purpose? Here it is, and here is my prayer, too.
All I have I give to you. Amen.
Sister Alma Rose Has the Last Word 