As a child my Mother every morning recited poetry or words of inspiration to me. This morning someone shared this note with me, the words of Howard Thurman and I wanted to jump start your day with them too. I hope that they inspire you too.

I Want To Be Better

by Howard Thurman

The concern which I lay before God today is my need to better:

I want to be better than I am in my my most ordinary day by day contacts:

With my friends
With my family
With my casual contacts
With my business relations
With my associates in work and in play

I want to be better than I am in the responsibilities that are mine:

I am conscious of my many petty resentments
I am conscious of increasing hostility toward certain people
I am conscious of the effort to be pleasing for effect, not because it is a genuine feeling on my part
I am conscious of a tendency to shift to other shoulder burdens that are clearly my own

I want to be better in the quality of my religious experience:

I want to develop an honest and clear prayer life
I want to develop a sensitiveness to the will of God in my own life.
I want to develop a charitableness towards my my fellows that is far greater than even my most exaggerated pretensions.

I WANT TO BE BETTER THAN I AM

I lay bare this need and this desire before God in the quietness of this moment