Morning prayer · 3 January

First and last

A circle drawn in one continuous ink line that quietly becomes a straight path at the bottom, trailing off the edge of the page.

Eternal and most loving God, in yourself you’re a circle: first and last and everything at once. But in the way you work with us, you’re a straight line, leading us from our beginning, through all our ways, to our end. Help me look forward to my end, and to look back too, at the mercy you’ve shown me from the very beginning, from the day you first called me and wrote my name in your book of life. As I think on your mercy like this, help me begin everything I do here with your mercy in mind. Amen.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, who is and was and is to come—the Almighty.

Revelation 1:8 (BSB)

Adapted from John Donne, Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (1624), in plain words. The verse is from the Berean Standard Bible (public domain). Drawing: Mutter.