Lord, take me where you want me to go.
Let me meet who you want me to meet.
Tell me what you want me to say,
And keep me out of your way.
It’s not my prayer. It’s a prayer that came from the Franciscan priest Father Mychal Judge, who was killed on 9/11 at the World Trade Center when he was ministering to a fallen firefighter.
Mychal Judge was a chaplain for the New York City Fire Department. His church, St. Francis of Assisi, was right across the street from the fire station Engine 1, Ladder 24 on West 31st Street, not far from our Guideposts editorial offices. He had printed the words of the prayer on a card to hand out to anyone who needed them.
On September 10, 2001, he called his fellow NYFD chaplain Everett Wabst of Staten Island for some more prayer cards. Father Mychal had run out of them. Wabst was driving into New York with the cards when he heard of the attack. Soon he learned about Father Mychal’s tragic death.
For the next 48 hours, Wabst counseled firefighters, survivors and first responders. And he used the prayer that came from one of the disaster’s first victims. They’re words that work any day of the year, but they seem particularly poignant for this day.
Lord, take me where you want me to go.
Let me meet who you want me to meet.
Tell me what you want me to say,
And keep me out of your way.
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