More or less everyone I talk to these days is feeling tired. (Not just those of us who were up for an hour and a half last night with an irate toddler, but everyone!) It’s been a long year, to say the least. And it’s been almost exactly a year, depending on how you count; a little more than a year since the first positive case in Massachusetts, almost eleven months since schools closed here, and everything else closed with them.

It’s been a year that’s taken endurance and strength, even when we haven’t felt like we’ve had them. And the last few weeks have been difficult in their own ways, as snow and ice and cold weather keep us even more indoors than we have been, as the happy memories of sociable walks outside with friends and outdoor dining are further and further away, as new variants are on the rise. There are glimmers of hope of course—a number of you have been vaccinated or have appointments to be—but it’s been a long winter at the end of a long year, and while the end is in sight, it’s not exactly close.

I don’t have any wise theological reflection or clever allegory to share this morning, but I do have something that we can always turn to when we don’t have anything to say. I do have a prayer.

In fact, it’s one of my favorite prayers. You can find it in your prayer book on page 832: the prayer “For Quiet Confidence.” It goes like this:

O God of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Wherever you’re reading this, whenever you’re reading this, I hope you can take thirty seconds to say that prayer again, and pray for quiet confidence, pray for returning and rest, pray that you may be still and know that God is God—whatever else is happening around you.