A Prayer of My True Self

God,
you see me as I am,
not as others see me,
not even as I see myself.

I have tried to hide my pain
and the bleeding deep inside.

It is as if fear and shame
have all but swallowed me up;

but you see me as I am,
the true self of myself,
carefully formed in the womb of your Love.

Free me from the violation and distortion
to which I have been webbed.
Mercifully break the hold of the victim within me
and show me the elegance of my own creation.

Let your fierce binding love knit together
the shattered pieces of my soul and let me see myself
through the eyes of Jesus, who knew my pain before
I was even born and whose cross of desolation is become
a tree of life, for me, this day, through Your infinite mercy.

Robert Pynn
Dean Emeritus
Calgary, Canada