Sunday Prayer

From the book, Stumbling towards Faith by Renee Altson:

o god,
your love does pull at me
if i am silent with myself
I feel it,
as much as i feel my blood, my breath,
it is there, as present with me as my own self.

if terrifies me, this love of yours.
what does it expect in return?
what will it demand of me?
what part of who i am must i sacrifice for it?
how much of me will be lost?

i am afraid of losing what i have left
so much has already been taken away
so much i never gave,
so much i was never able to give
because it was never mine.

i am afraid that your love will take me apart
that it will undo me, rewrite me,
that it will strip me of my defenses,
my pathetic self-securities,
that it will leave nothing left.

my whole life has been a fear of being nothing.
i have held on to my terror, my shame, my grief,
believing it helped to keep me alive.

what does your love do with my shame?
what does your love do with everything in me that resists it?

and always, the same questions:
where were you in those harsh times? where was your love?