O God of all seasons and senses,
grant me your sense of timing
to submit gracefully
and rejoice quietly
in the turn of the seasons.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of endings;
children growing, friends leaving,
jobs concluding,
stages finishing,
grieving over,
grudges over,
blaming over,
excuses over.

O God, grant me your sense of timing.

In this season of short days and long nights,
of grey and white and cold,
teach me the lessons of beginnings:
that such waitings and endings
may be a starting place,
a planting of seeds
which bring to birth
what is ready to be born —
something right and just and different,
a new song,
a deeper relationship,
a fuller love —
in the fullness of time.

O God grant me your sense of timing.