BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
March 16, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
Cloud of Promise, thank you for the promise of evening showers that soften the parched earth, moistening roots and dry seeds with your life-giving water. We confess that there are times when our souls are as dry as the hard-packed soil in last year’s garden and times when we find our dreams have turned to dust. We long to be as vibrant as we once were, but life has a way of beating us down, narrowing our options. As you formed streams in the desert for the people of old, meet us here in the shriveled valleys of our lives. Sweep up the grit of our disappointments and dashed hopes; and whatever shows possibility, sprinkle with your water of renewal, that it might thrive again.
Forgive us when we seek the easier way, when we ask for lighter loads, for we know Jesus himself walked the road of great despair. For those situations which cannot be altered, O Empowering One, help us to bear them with grace and patience, as did he, knowing pain is part of life’s journey. For certain, we are an anxious people, desiring quick fixes and instant results; so help us find value in our waiting. And in time, perhaps even when we are looking the other way, we will find ourselves immersed in your ocean of mercy.
Meanwhile, we recognize the ways you are already upholding your people, and especially offer our prayers of thanksgiving for the personal ways you touched this day with your goodness: . . . . . . . . . . And these prayers from our church family we also lift up to your keeping:
- Gratitude: Heart patient continues to improve
- Thanksgiving for visit with beloved friend
- Hospice patient thankful for vaccine
- One thankful to be home following lengthy hospital stay
- Gratitude: Husband bearing cancer treatment well
- Prayers for safe birth of grandchild
- Upholding families whose children fell victim to gun violence
- Prayers for a husband’s MS symptoms to meet with relief
- Comfort for all who mourn this day
- Grace for one awaiting treatment plan
- Comfort and proper diagnosis of a 6-year-old’s seizures
- Healing: Young sister with ongoing cancer concerns
- Two recovering from broken relationships
- Guidance and support for friend divorcing
- Rest and recovery for one following throat surgery
- Easing pain for one recovering from tongue malignancy
- Continued prayers for one healing from heart surgery
- Young adult having his fourth round of chemo this week
We leave these prayers of our hearts with you, O Lord of the Night, certain that you count them as sacred offerings. And knowing that you will be tending each with compassion, we will sleep in peace and gratitude. Watch over us, and all who are closest to our hearts, we pray, that we may be as refreshed as the psalmist whom you led to still waters:
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.
