Strayed Sheep, by William Holman Hunt, Creative Commons CC-BY-NC-ND (3.0 Unported)
Lord, I sometimes wander away from you.
But this is not because I am deliberately turning my back on you.
It is because of the inconstancy of my mind.
I weaken in my intention to give my whole soul to you.
I fall back into thinking of myself as my own master.
But when I wander from you,
my life becomes a burden,
and within me I find nothing
but darkness and wretchedness,
fear and anxiety.
So I come back to you,
and confess that I have sinned against you.
And I know you will forgive me.
Aelred of Rievaulx, c. 1109-1167, Abbot of Rievaulx in northern England
2000 Years of Prayer
___________________
He personally carried our sins
in his body on the cross
so that we can be dead to sin
and live for what is right.
By his wounds
you are healed.
Once you were like sheep
who wandered away.
But now you have turned to your Shepherd,
the Guardian of your souls.
prayer & verse 