BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
February 25, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
O Changeless One, it seems strange that you are also the Author of Change, but as evening glides in on its dark expansive wings, we ponder what particular changes you may be asking us to consider this season. Should we stay the course? Are you standing at a crossroads pointing to new possibilities? Should we take that bend in the lane that leads to unexplored landscapes? Naturally you would never presume to make the choice for us, so great is your respect for our free will, so grant us your wisdom in discernment and your courage if and when we take those first tentative steps. And even if we choose wrongly, you will use the road we take to your good purpose.
You know, Dear Friend, that we are frequently victims of our own narrow thinking and choose the more convenient route. Forgive our shuffling gait, Lord, and help us shake off our sins of lethargy as the dust from our shoes. Sensitize us to others whose opportunities are much more restricted than ours: those who are confined by joblessness, poverty, language barriers, emotional and physical infirmities. Their prison walls are simply too steep for them to scale. Is there not a wide passage that leads to those held captive? If so, point the way, and our Lenten pilgrimage may become a quest to break down the barriers stifling the lives of the dispossessed. May our compassion increase, turning into prayers with hands and feet.
Thank you for guiding us in our desire to become stronger disciples. And for the instances this day when we did set aside our own agenda to help another, we offer them to your glory working through us. Keep watch over all your flock at Church Street, and each these friends who offer their heartfelt gratitude to you and their prayers for help and healing:
- Thanksgiving: Ill family members are improving
- Gratitude: Friend with two surgeries now well enough to return home
- Family celebrates upcoming move to new home
- Grateful for prayers: Knee surgery was successful
- Happiness has returned in depressed mother’s life
- Adult children seeking quality care for ill mother
- Friends and family supporting a dying father
- Thankful for all community leaders working for solutions to the gun violence
- Upholding one facing treatment for lymphoma
- Healing for colleague on ventilator with Covid
- All who are grappling with recovery from deadly winter storms
- Safe environments for our children and youth
- Prayers for one awaiting cancer surgery
- Courage for family grieving loss of a newborn
- Good job openings for two members
- Family and friends grieving a young person’s suicide
- Strength for two members in cancer treatment
- Healing for member recovering from knee surgery
- Easing of anxiety for young mother in final weeks of pregnancy
- Family members in North Carolina, suffering with Covid
- Relief for one enduring painful headaches
As we take our rest, O Vast and Blessed One, give us deeper insight into the ways we might fulfill your holy purpose. And as we sleep, give a peaceful night to all our friends and family, enfolding all who seek to serve you in the name of Christ, who taught us to pray:
Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen.
