Chris gave me an I-tunes card for my b-day. It was hard to choose but I finally bought "Come to the Quiet" by John Michael Talbot.

Someone gave this "record" to us as a wedding present. We listened to it a lot. It sustained us during our early years of marriage. It sustained Bill through many hours of sitting along while I was in bed throwing up during pregnancy. It sustained me through the good and the tough times of raising my first child.
"Birch Creek"
(c) M Pruitt 2008

But as the years passed - we lost the ability to play a record. The songs have always stayed in our hearts, but I missed the simple and beautiful music of this album.

So I bought it and ever since, these words - one of the songs - have been echoing in my ears. It's been my prayer for many years, and continues - even in these hard days of illness, to be my prayer for how I act, and think, and treat others.


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.

-written by St. Francis of Assisi