BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
March 30, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
Here in the shadowed silence, our thoughts turn to you, Blessed Lord. Another day of grandeur you have provided out of your own benevolence. There were moments when we were speechless when we beheld the spring glory. And even if we passed by the marvels of the daylight, Brother Moon, round as a saucer, has kept watch from his chosen corner these first evenings of Holy Week. We praise you for your visible presence, Unfailing Friend, though we long to be those who live by faith alone and not by sight.
Anointed One, in your final days in this realm, we member how Mary stole soundlessly into the home of Simon, and how, out of her deep love for you, she poured the costly ointment upon your feet at suppertime. Hers was an extravagant gesture of risk, yet she boldly demonstrated where her devotion lay. Her courageous actions are a template for the cost of discipleship. As we move through these sacred days, may we be bold enough to ask ourselves if we would give up our most precious possessions, our status, our independence and control to follow our Savior. We pray that our private meditations this hallowed week might lead us to answer with candor and humility, and that our communal worship services might be counted as fragrant offerings to you.
Gracious Lord, as you touched so many with your grace during your final days of your earthly walk, we ask that you would ease the hearts of those who suffer this day, and particularly accept the gratitude and the concerns and offered by members of our church family:
- Family offer thanks for church support in bereavement
- Thankful for prayers: Eye is healing
- One expresses gratitude for a faithful friend
- One celebrates promising medical report
- Gratitude: God’s guidance in a career move
- For a miracle to heal a painful leg ailment
- Prayers for member having hip replacement surgery Wednesday
- Solace for families who mourn
- For community to work together to end violence among our vulnerable youth
- Healing for one suffering with fractured shoulder
- God’s healing: Young couple’s miscarriage
- Courage and strength for friend with intestinal cancer
- Gratitude: Son’s Covid test was negative
- Guidance for one moving into a new course of study
- Young family broken by alcoholism
- Continued prayers for healing after eye surgery
- Continued healing for an alcoholic
- Dear friend having medical tests in Murfreesboro
- Sustaining family of ill 6-year-old
As we close our day, we thank you, Most Holy God, for gathering us into a beloved community, for in your wisdom, you knew we would need one another as we traveled this long Lenten journey. Cast your warm moonlight over us as we rest this night, anointing us with its creamy glow. We would be made whole for Christ’s sake, and we offer these prayers in his name, praying as 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.
