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Good morning
So the turkey’s gone, the Christmas cake has vanished and many of us are heading back to work, perhaps it feels like ‘back to the grindstone.’

There’s a prayer that I recall at times like these; words that have been formative in my own working life, etched in my memory from weekly repetition through my childhood and adolescence. It was at school assembly where we all said the Lord’s prayer, then the headteacher voiced this prayer… with so much predictability that I can recall some of it by heart.

There’s a line that asks for God’s grace to face our responsibilities, to carry our burdens and to transfigure the daily round with the beauty of holiness. I’ve grown to appreciate it in adulthood because it doesn’t deny the duty, it doesn’t duck the challenge – but it acknowledges that if God’s grace could shape our routines, then they – and we – could be transfigured by the beauty of holiness.
Imagine that: each demand, each expectation, each task, no longer a drag but an opportunity, a window through which God may transform me and transform the world around me.

This prayer felt itself like a duty to my teenage self – something boring the headteacher did by rote. But I’m so grateful for the habit with which it was etched into me then, and shapes my approach to routine now.  It means that even as the alarm clock declares it is time to head back to work, I can go back with a recurring reminder that God’s grace can change everything:

Loving God: grant that your grace this day may bring us to face our responsibilities, to carry our burdens and to transfigure the daily round with the beauty of your holiness. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.