BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
March 11, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
Evening Host, settle us down as the night air drifts in and the warm moon high above is captured in a blue mist. Night’s reverie is ours once again, and we turn our thoughts to our blessings of this day just past . . . . . . . . . . Your presence seemed to float before us, opening doors and windows when we were hemmed in by challenges. Forgive us when we fail to remember that even the breaths we take come as your gift to us. Truly, if we were to list all your favors in the journals of our hearts, the pages and margins could not contain such manifold entries.
O Gatherer of the Beloved Community, you have been faithful in tending us through this past year of travail; and now, in just a few days, we will once again be able to worship with our brothers and sisters in our own church building! Having experienced all our seclusion and loneliness, our fears and losses, our anxieties and bereavements, we shall not return to your sanctuary as the same people we were before. We have been deeply humbled by this stealthy virus, but also by the ways you have brought about renewal. Let us sing praises to our God of Goodness whose silent work can never be squelched by illness, suffering, travesty, or even death!
Words fail us, as ever, but we offer gratitude that we are part of that great pilgrimage traveling to your heavenly home. The road is often steep and the crossroads confusing, yet you lend encouragement when we think of turning back. In your mercy, receive these specific prayers offered by your Church Street sojourners, and all our unspoken ones we carry with us:
- Couple celebrates new baby arriving in July
- Gratitude: Heart catheterization revealed no blockages
- Cancer survivor is encouraged by church’s prayers
- Members thankful for church’s educational offerings
- Gratitude: Hospitalized sister is much improved
- Healing: Young sister with ongoing cancer concerns
- Comfort for family: Cherished mother in hospice care
- Healing for colleague following risky surgery
- Prayers that heart catheterization Friday goes well
- Patience for one awaiting medical treatment
- Prayers that new meds improve breathing issues
- Safe delivery of first grandchild
- Patience and healing for one recovering from surgery
- Healing for grandson with lymphoma
- Elderly mother in hospice care at home
- Prayers for adult son to conquer his addiction
- Recovery for youngster with head injury
- Diagnosis for 6-year-old niece having seizures
Grant us, O Lord, and all whom we cherish, a peaceful rest under the panoply of stars. And as we sleep, silently engrave the name of Jesus upon our hearts, that all our thoughts and deeds may become extensions of the love of your Son, who taught us to pray with these words:
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.
