BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
March 9, 2021
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
For no one For no one can lay any foundation
other than what has been laid down.
That foundation is Jesus Christ.
(I Corinthians 3:11)
God of Wonder, we look upward in the ebbing day to perhaps glimpse the shadow of your face, and you do not fail us! You are there – high above in the cool wind that playfully shifts the evening clouds, peeping out behind the violet mist just below the mountaintop, in the glowing steadiness of Orion and the North Star. Ever-Changing, but always the same, Constant Being, your majesty is revealed to us only in brief moments of our day, but these fleeting fragments are enough to steep our souls in wonder.
Yet even in our wonder, when we turn our eyes to the state of our world and the crushing burdens many must carry, we confess our belief sometimes withers. Those old doubts begin to gnaw at the weak places in the foundation of our faith. Fill in those gaps, we pray, with the tenets that upheld the saints and martyrs of long ago, who suffered even unto death. Tightly cement the fissures with the unwavering trust we had as children. Make our foundation strong and sturdy again, Sustaining One, that it would withstand any adversity the world throws at us, and would bear the weight of all the burdens we are privileged to carry on behalf of the weak and overwhelmed.
As we endeavor to draw closer to you this Lenten Season, you meet us half-way, ever holding out to us the promise of renewal. You know our emptiness, our loneliness, and the personal detours that block our passage, so steady us once again, we pray, to confront our private concerns . . . . . . . . . . ; and we also seek guidance for your Church Street family, who have earnestly asked to be remembered:
- Gratitude: Family whose newborn died feel supported by our prayers
- Lonely member offers thanks for a new friendship
- Family celebrates baby boy born last night
- Couple offer thanksgiving for new home
- Family grateful for a new grandson in Ohio
- Celebration of in-person worship on Sunday
- Gratitude for prayers: Biopsies were negative
- One thankful for successful surgery on Monday
- Upholding young wife with Stage 2 breast cancer
- Cherished mother in hospice care at home
- Upholding family grieving death of mother/grandmother
- Prayers for elderly mother hospitalized and her daughters
- Healing for two recovering from risky surgery
- Beloved sister weakened by disease, hospitalized
- Guidance and courage for family of addictive son
- Stamina for husband continuing cancer treatments
- Courage for 5 year old with head injury and family as they care for him
- Diagnosis for 6-year-old niece having seizures
- Comfort for husband: MS and breathing issues
- Two mourning the end of important relationships
- Member awaiting PET scan and treatment plan
Elusive One, we take our rest this night, still wrapped in the wonder of life itself and of the love that will never let us go. May your mercy lie with us, and all whom we cherish, that even in our dreams we will not wander beyond your reach.
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.
