lord,

you made me in pieces — a heart that longs to see beauty in all things, a mind who questions even the ground beneath my feet, a conscience that seeks purity but clings too hard to failure.

i love truth, but fear what it may ask of me. i crave love, yet know not when to deny or allow myself it. i long to be free, yet cling to the familiarity of my chains.

like augustine, i have been a stranger to my own heart. like augustine, i have become to myself a place of unhappiness in which i cannot bear to be with nowhere to flee to in escaping myself. teach me, as you taught him, to find grace through confession.

i've tried to outthink my weakness, outwork my unworthiness. break into my restlessness, o god, and teach me what it means to be whole, not by being perfect, but by being honest, by being loved even when i falter. i surrender everything i cannot fix to the one who can heal.

amen.

my heart is restless until it rests in you.