BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
November 18 2020
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
Hear my cry, O God; listen to my prayer. From the end of the earth I call to you, when my heart is faint. Lead me to the rock that is higher than I, for you are my refuge, a strong tower of strength. Let me abide in your tent forever under the shelter of your wings. Psalm 61:1-4
Highest Hope of the Weak, we call to you when our hearts are faint. We don’t want to believe that hatred and fear have power in our nation, but we have heard the testimonies and we have seen for ourselves how these bitter forces have already rooted themselves in too many places. Don’t let the spirit of discontent take root in our souls, we pray; for the heart that seeks to separate is the heart that does not love. Help us to overcome that downward tug by becoming a force for love. Strengthen us to live out a kind of love that makes us stand up on a high rock, crying out for the cause of peace, justice, and reconciliation, as did Jesus.
O Promised Rest, your love has brought us this far, and by your grace, we have been blessed throughout the years, celebrating joys and enduring the sorrows of this life. And as we consider ourselves survivors, we resist admitting that we are also bone-tired. Our sense of responsibility and our need to control have gotten out of hand, resulting in our adding work hours to our already crowded days, while subtracting time to rest, reflect, and cherish your good gifts. The pandemic has whittled away our confidence and we are frayed around the edges. So receive us into your loving arms that we might receive that promised rest for the weary. Let us kneel at your feet and take our ease. Let us leave our burdens there, knowing you will manage them until we are once again refreshed and ready to carry on.
Of course, Prescient Lord, you know our needs before we even speak them, but still you want us to turn to you as our trusted confidant. And somehow, as we give voice to our longings, we receive a sense that our pleas have entered the sacred realm of heaven, where even the saints are praying for us. No prayer is ever wasted, and in that belief, we bare our souls before you, sharing our brightest joys, our earnest hopes and our gripping losses. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . In your mercy, gather these and all the prayers of the Church Street family which we now whisper in the name of Christ:
- Gratitude: A brother is home from hospital, but pray for full healing
- Prayers appreciated: A teenager is moving toward healing
- Thanksgiving: Retinal surgery was successful
- Family celebrates the news of a much-desired pregnancy
- Gratitude that a mother is recovering well from virus at home
- Pray for a wife having further consultations at the Mayo Clinic on Thursday
- Peace for faithful member awaiting PET scan results this week
- Prayers for young family of four in isolation due to virus exposure
- Full recovery for husband from risky heart surgery
- A door to open for a struggling woman in need of a job, and for insurance to approve an important medical procedure
- Refugee children, that they may be released and reunited with families
- Prayers for resolution of conflicts within two families
- Strength for stressed brother caring for his wife who has dementia
- Lift up a very ill sister-in-law who remains in ICU with COVID
- Continued healing for teenage daughter and an ill brother
- Comfort for husband and entire family: young wife died last week
- Prayers that a lonely daughter will find friends and companionship
- Healing for an elderly father hospitalized with COVID
- Guidance for weary caregiver; continued healing for her husband
- Healing from virus: Young grandson and a young granddaughter
- Prayers that a daughter finds the work God wants her to undertake
- Faithful Christian friend in ICU with progressive cancer
We leave these prayers in your tender care. And if it isn’t too much to ask, grant that we may live lives so close to your Son’s that Jesus’ story will be our story too; and that we may also abide in your tent forever, under the safe shelter of your wings:
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.
