Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of July 18, 2021
Written by Rev. Jan Buxton Wade
We come at this moment, O Lord Most High, knowing it is your will that all people be bound together in love and harmony. Truly, it has long been our prayer that we might become an integral part of your plan; we would be among those focused and resilient ones who uphold your foundation of grace and love. We confess, however, that we have fallen short of your expectations and have failed in our resolve. Our prejudices and pride have resurfaced time and again to weaken the very structure we have sought to buttress. Forgive our flaws, especially the countless ways in which we have excluded those who do not think or act as we, those whose lifestyles and experiences are vastly different than our own. And in your mercy, tend the wounds, we pray, of those whom we have injured. Turn us again toward your true words of welcome and acceptance, that we might find our unyielding place beside your Son, the Cornerstone of our Faith.
Renewing God, truly your faithfulness comes to us new every morning. Even the vaporous undulating clouds overhead, ever changing in their mystery, speak of your nearness and your promise of new beginnings. We praise you for their silent message that clear skies live just above mounds of gray; and that, through your grace, fresh possibilities await. Give us patience, we pray, to work in your name even when the times seem ashen, even when our efforts seem fruitless. When our discipleship grows stale, point us toward that untried avenue of service that you have already planned for us. Give us such faith, we pray, that we might never doubt that your clarity ever shines beyond the haze.
It was Jesus who took a single scant meal of bread and fish on the mountainside, blessed it, and it provided enough to feed a multitude. We recognize how you have blessed us and are humbled that you have given us more than we could ever ask or deserve. Even life in this realm is your sacred miracle. Help us who are so richly blessed to bless the multitudes, as did our Lord. Bless the hands of those among us who feed the hungry and reach out to the poor. Bless the hearts of those who never forget the homeless, the ill, and the vulnerable. Bless the feet of those who transport your hope to the hurting across the globe. May your power continue to flow through these humble servants who extend your mercy in abundance, as did Jesus.
Remembering that your Son receives every care we cast upon him, we share our deepest concerns this week. And also acknowledging the ways in which you are sustaining us, we name our thanksgivings:
Thanksgivings:
- Gratitude: husband recovering steadily in assisted living
- Thanksgiving: member continues to heal following a fall
- Family celebrates out-of-town wedding of last week
- Thankful for prayers during long journey cross country and safe arrival
- Prayers appreciated: Husband home from rehab
- Gratitude for life of faithful Christian servant at Sterchi Lodge
- Couple thankful for respite – travel in northern states
- Family thankful for a son’s college scholarship
- Family celebrates a daughter’s engagement
- Grateful for prayers: Neck surgery went well
- Thankful for prayers: No side effects experienced during cancer treatments
- Celebrating children and leaders in successful choir camp
- Prayers appreciated: Member managing radiation treatments
Concerns:
- Continued health and protection for four mothers-to-be
- Couple separated for four weeks, work responsibilities
- Grace and patience for one healing from a leg injury
- Mending a shattered friendship
- Three members in physical therapy
- Two seeking relief from debilitating back pain
- One in longtime depression, for a new beginning
- A friend healing from heart transplant
- Healing grace for young mother with bone cancer
- Healing for friend – bone marrow transplant
- Comfort for husband wife separated in assisted living
- Continued healing for mother with broken pelvis
- A daughter and son-in-law with Covid and their family
- Steady healing for brother with colon cancer
- Longtime friend with advanced liver and lung cancer
- God’s grace for young friend showing signs of ALS
We ask all these things with confidence, knowing that you hear us even before we ask, and we pray in earnest, using the words Jesus taught his first disciples:
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.
