We praise you, O Lord, for our limits; limits you have given us for our good and for your glory.
We praise you for this blessing—we praise you for the boundaries of our beings!
You have made us finite creatures that we might be held and known.
You have made us finite creatures that we might exult in the infinite wonders of your beauty, your majesty, your love, your power.
We have traveled this day to the Great Lakes, O Lord, to the far edge of the habitable land, as to the utter end of our own measure and ability and strength, to find here reminders of your limitless
presence extended immeasurably beyond us.

In this place may we recall our blessed smallness.
(Silence is kept).

May we on this lovely shore lay down our pretensions of power, shedding the burdensome dreams of our own grandeur, and may we find instead contentment in our creatureliness.
May we grasp the grace that is here so evident.
May we know solace and calm and wonder and delight, reveling here in a rightful place as those who are not, and never will be, God, but who are yet your beloved image-bearers.

We are your creatures, alive because your breath has filled our lungs.
We are your people, restored because your salvation has found us.

May we wade here in the wild waters of your presence.
May we bask here in the golden light of your love.

In this blue space of sea and sand, and soothing sound, center anew our restless hearts, O Lord, that we might embrace the wonder of the created, that we might be contented in the finitude that moves us to rightful awe at your awesomeness, to rightful humility at your power, and to a rightful delight in your benevolent affections.

May the stresses of obligation, reputation, and deadline here dissolve.
May we find rest in the renewed certainty that we need not be feared or respected or popular or successful or somehow perfect, to be loved by you.

There is no striving here at the end of our limits.
Forgive our former strivings after our own righteousness, O Lord.

In our smallness let us celebrate your greatness.
In the depth of your presence let us taste anew the freedom of children on holiday.

Let us ride upon these waves of endless grace, unselfconsciously delighting in the scale of a creation, and of a Creator, and of a redemption, so much grander than ourselves.

Amen.
(adapted from liturgy from Every Moment Holy, used with permission)