BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
November 4, 2020
God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear…
Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations; I am exalted in the earth.
-Psalm 46:1-2a, 10
All-Knowing God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we come before you this day with hopeful and trusting hearts. On this morning after an election that may continue to divide us as a nation, we bow before you in complete surrender, searching for your compassionate and healing presence to guide us in our life together. Although the final outcome may still be uncertain, we know that “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” How do we move into your future with new eyes, new ears, new ways of being?
Merciful God, grant us patience in this time of waiting, for it is not only we who wait, but the entire world. What happens here not only affects us as a nation, but all your children everywhere. You call us to be a witness to your reconciling power, an instrument of healing in a broken, hurting world. Open our hearts and minds to the realization that we are part of a global village, a richly diverse gathering of all your children, yearning for your shalom – a world of peace with justice, where equality is more than a dream and peace is more than the absence of war.
Compassionate God, remind us that, in this time of anxious waiting, there are others who do not have the “luxury” of spending hours glued to the media coverage of unfolding results and events. Open our hearts that we may hear the cries of those in need – those without work, struggling to keep a roof over their heads and put food on their table; those whose lives have been shattered by a pandemic that will not end; those who live on our streets, longing for a friendly face and a word of hope; those who live in isolation, hungry for the touch of another human being; those who fear for their lives, uncertain of a future filled with so much racial tension and unrest. All these and more, though invisible to us, are in plain sight to you. Watch over these, your children, and also hear the concerns from your Church Street family:
- Gratitude for a member’s successful hip surgery
- Thanksgiving for CSUMC children and youth programs
- Grateful cancer was detected early, only minor surgery required
- Prayers for God’s healing and a way forward for our splintered nation
- Prayers for young mother, relief from postpartum depression, anxiety
- Two sons with major addictions, that they may pursue rehabilitation
- Prayers for wife and family currently at Mayo Clinic, wisdom for doctors
- Prayers for young grandson with autism, healing of his self-abuse
- Continued prayers, nephew in Missouri, seriously ill with Covid-19
- Member grieving on anniversary of wife’s death and many struggles
- Sustaining dear friend and her family as they move her to a new facility
- Healing and guidance for family – husband ailing with very serious illness
- Strength for friend with metastatic cancer, wisdom for her physicians
- Prayers that a federal court ruling on November 9 will be lenient and just
- Healing of granddaughter (16) very ill with gastroparesis
- Continued prayers for young wife battling leukemia
- Sustaining prayers for mother in hospice care & her worried family
Break our hearts, O God, as your heart is breaking, and bring us to new understandings of what it means to be a true follower of Jesus Christ. Emblazon on our spirits our baptismal vows – “to resist evil, injustice, and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves.” Free us from all that keeps us from joyful service and strengthen our resolve to walk the paths you place before us, secure in the knowledge that we do not walk alone.
Reconciling God, whatever the final results of the election, give us the grace to accept the leaders we as a people have chosen, and the willingness to work alongside them to bring hope and healing to your world. May they be open vessels, putting aside their own agendas to hear your still, small voice calling them to a life of servanthood. Keep ever before us that a life lived in service to others is the only life worth living. Following the example of Christ who modeled for us a life of servanthood that knew no bounds, we offer the prayer he taught us:
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.
Special thanks to Rev. Pat Clendenen for contributing to this week’s prayers.
