Let all things be exactly as they are.
1. Let me not be Your critic today, Lord,
nor judge against You.
²Let me not attempt to interfere with Your Creation,
nor distort it into sickly forms.
³Let me be willing to withdraw my wishes from its unity,
and let it be as You created it.
⁴For thus shall I also come to recognize my Self as You created me.
⁵In Love was I created,
and in Love will I remain forever.
⁶What could I fear, if I allow all things to be exactly as they are?
2. Let not our sight be blasphemous today, nor let our ears attend to lying tongues.
²Only reality is free from pain.
³Only reality is free from loss.
⁴Only reality is wholly safe.
⁵And this is all we seek today.I
I Reality was created in the Love of God, and it is splendid. There is no pain, suffering, or loss in it—all of that exists only in my opinions, in the stories I tell myself about the world and about me. Today I choose to stop criticizing the Work of God and to behold it as it is.
What wounds me is not Reality itself, but my blasphemous interpretation of it, colored by judgments and guilt that I ceaselessly project. I have mistaken my story for the Truth and have thought it was real, when the only thing real is the Love of God. It is not life that torments me—it is the story I tell myself about it.
Today I wish to renounce my interpretations and allow Reality to be what it is: perfect, complete, intact. Perfect, from the Latin per-fectum, means “that which is completely done, finished.” And such is God’s creation—whole, absolute, without flaw. It needs not my judgments, only my gratitude.
Therefore, today I am willing to set aside my desire to change what cannot change, and to rest in the joyful acceptance that Reality is already perfect. My only possible contribution is gratitude: thank You for being what You are; thank You for my existence; thank You for the whole of Creation.
Father, may I not be a critic of Your Work today, but a witness to Your Perfection.
Open my eyes to the truth that all is Love, and let my only gesture be gratitude.