all that i am

For time is Your gift to us -
But a perishable gift, a gift that doesn't keep.
Lord, I have time
I have all my time,
All the time You gave me,
The years of my life,
The days of my years,
They are all mine. 
Mine to fill up calmly, peacefully,
But to fill up completely, right to the brim -
To offer to You, that of their stale water
You may make a generous wine, as once at Cana for a
human wedding feast.

I don't ask this evening Lord,
for time to do this or that.
I ask for the grace to do conscientiously,
in the time that You gave me,
the thing that You want me to do.

                by Michel Quoist
                              a French priest who lived 1921-1997