This prayer gave me a lot of insights about some personal things I've been struggling with, like doubt and confusion...

These first days of April are a test of your faith in faith itself. A test of your willingness to believe in yourself without looking back, to accept yourself as part of a divine design, as part of the Universe. A test of your readiness to walk the path you have chosen, simply because your heart and your soul chose it, and they know where they are going.

How many times have you traded away your birthright? How many times have you postponed your desires in favor of “circumstances”? How many times have you cut your own soul against illusions you called hope and love, simply because you placed them into someone else’s hands?

The grains of your sandcastles have already slipped into the funnel of time. It is time for a conversation with yourself. With the one whose name is not spoken lightly, yet whom we so often disturb over things that only seem important to us.

I want to offer you a well-known text. The Prayer of Francis of Assisi. Let it inspire you and fill your heart with light.

God, make me an instrument of Your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me bring love.
Where there is injury, let me bring forgiveness.
Where there is discord, let me bring harmony.
Where there is doubt, let me bring faith.
Where there is confusion, let me bring truth.
Where there is despair, let me bring hope.
Where there is darkness, let me bring light.
Where there is sadness, let me bring joy.

Grant me, God, not to seek comfort, but to comfort,
Not to seek understanding, but to understand,
Not to seek love, but to love.

For it is in giving that we receive,
In forgetting ourselves that we find ourselves,
In forgiving that we are forgiven,
And in dying that we are born to eternal life.

It is time to turn the hourglass and begin a different kind of counting. The counting of real time. The kind where you stop diminishing yourself. Where you stop performing some version of yourself. Where you stop attaching endless adjectives to the word “I,” and finally begin to live through nouns and verbs. 

I am. I am the path. I am life. I.

And everything that follows… is your choice. Truly yours. Just be mindful where you place the emphasis. The Universe has a very particular sense of humor.