BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
August 26, 2020
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
I am the door. If anyone enters by me he will be saved
and will come in and go our freely and find pasture. John 10:9
O Keeper of the Keys, in the dampness of morning, there comes a certain clarity of thought that eludes us during the cluttered day. Here as the fog lifts we can see how far we’ve come by your grace, and just how many times you have opened doors for us to pass through. Along the passageways of rejection, despondency, anxiety, and grief you have unlocked doors of hope for us, revealing newness on the other side. We travel another corridor of confusion in the present time, as that is the way life is in this realm; but even now, if we are very still, we can hear your latchkey turning in the lock on the door of fear. We wait with patience, knowing we will find freedom on the other side.
Gracious God, hear our prayer.
Divine Gateway, we have seen time and again how you point the way to the portal of forgiveness. You do not keep score of our sins, nor record our pock-marked past; but our confessions sweep the threshold clean, that we may step through your doorway unencumbered to newness beyond. Grant us truth and boldness as we recall and name the ways in which we have not helped, and have even harmed, our brothers and sister in Christ . . . . . . . Relegate these scrapped thoughts and deeds, we pray, to the dustbin of worthlessness, never again to be brought to light. And leaving all these remnants behind, clothe us in grace as we take up your banner of hope and walk on.
Gracious God, hear our prayer.
Enduring Entryway, as we remember your everlasting mercy in our own lives, we lift up all your people who are caught up in disaster, disturbance, and disease. Continue to strengthen the people of Iowa as they recover from tornado-like storms that have affected millions; watch over those in the path of Hurricane Laura on our southern coasts; assist those who have fled the wildfires in Colorado and California, watching in horror as their homes and businesses are destroyed; diffuse the anger and bitterness that has infected our major cities; send your comfort and healing to the suffering millions in Spain, Italy, England, and Iran — each pommeled by the virus, job losses, and hunger. To these we add these personal concerns (and also the joys) of members of our church family:
- Mother is thankful for opportunity to visit with daughter in Chicago
- Grateful for prayers: Family of 5 now healed of Covid-19
- One is celebrating negative virus test
- Friend with lung cancer is now much stronger
- Protection of daughter & husband living near violence in Kenosha, WI
- Prayers please: one seeking help for anxiety; health, family & work issues
- Prayers for a sister laid off from work; a sister facing leg amputation
- Prayers for two tiny babies in NICU, grace & comfort for loving parents
- Two who need to seek treatment for lengthy & dangerous addictions
- Son with knee injury, for correct diagnosis & treatment
- Calm & wisdom for husband taking licensure exams this week
- Healing of depression for both a daughter & a daughter-in-law
- Two husbands dealing with anxiety & depression, for healing
- Young relative searching for new medications to halt spreading cancer
- Cherished mother coping with side effects of cancer medication
- Healing prayers for a father dealing with health-related anxiety
- A sister who searches for answers to her health problems
- Guidance for loving son who is moving his father into to assisted living
- Continued prayers: a very ill father at home & a father in hospice care
- Healing grace for a teenage relative in treatment for extensive burns
You receive our prayers, Lord, spoken or unspoken, clumsy or eloquent, vague or explicit; for yours is a piercing love which knows what we need and what we desire long before we can frame the words.
Gracious God, hear our prayer.
And although we remain distanced, we are close together in the heart of God, and we now join our voices in the chorus of all who serve you, praying the ancient prayer of Jesus:
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.
