BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
February 22, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
O One Who Tends our Souls, your magnificence beams upon us each day, but in spite of your gifts of wonder, we confess that we often set our minds, not on divine things, but on human things. We scramble for the paper goods and seize every dairy item in sight at the grocer’s when someone whispers “snow!” And should we get wind of an increase in gas prices, we race to join the line up at the pumps. Anxiety is contagious, and when we catch that fever of uneasiness, we grab far more than we need, doubting your loving provision. Forgive us for allowing ourselves to become tangled again in that knot of fear that has plagued us all our lives. Teach us to trust during this season, Holy One, and write the apostle’s words upon our hearts: “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
O Divine Parent, surely we are an embarrassment to you when we shrink from living as your disciples. And given the many times we have wounded you, it is astonishing that you put up with us at all. Particularly we recall these personal slights we have inflicted upon you and upon others this day: . . . . . . . . . . We humbly open ourselves to your forgiveness, trusting that you might show us how to claim that power of which the apostle speaks.
These have been days of unease for many of your people, Comforting God, and those trapped by riveting troubles. Be with all those who are trying to recover from deadly winter storms and send willing hands to assist with reconstruction. Give hope to the afflicted, we pray, that they may not give in to despair. You hear the cries of all whose hearts are unsettled, who bear pain of body, mind and spirit. Energize our own community that we might bring the evil assaults on our young people to an end. Touch each one, we pray, whose names we now whisper . . . . . . . . . . . . And also attend to these requests that spring from the souls of our church members:
- Thanksgiving for prayers: Second chemo treatment completed
- One offers gratitude for an unexpected financial gift
- Family celebrates the birth of healthy baby today
- Prayers appreciated: Young mother’s surgery went well
- Sister-in-law’s surgery was successful Friday, grateful for prayers
- Six express thanks for church’s help with vaccinations
- Pray for countless children who are behind academically
- Guidance for second grader with learning difficulties
- Healing: Brother and wife suffering with Covid
- Healing for young husband with Covid
- Guidance for mother concerning her son’s health
- Those struggling with recent bereavements
- Continued healing: Mother recovering from a stroke
- Grieving family whose newborn lived only a few days
- Families devastated by shooting deaths in our city
- Prayers for one in radiation treatment
- Comfort and guidance for adult children seeking ways to best care for their elderly mother
- Prayers for a job opening for a professional man
- Healing for a young grandson
- Resolving gun violence in Knoxville
- Pray for our educators and students at all levels
O Breath Within Our Breath, quiet our souls in the evening hours as we take our rest in your enduring love. Meet our worries and our fears at that mysterious point in the night when your grace somehow blossoms into blessing. All these prayers and petitions we leave with you, in the name of our Redeemer, who taught us to pray in this way:
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.
