BINDING SOUL AND SOURCE
Prayers for the Church Street Family
September 29, 2020
Rev. Dr. Jan Buxton Wade
O God, we often search for you behind the clouds, beyond the bounds of the conventional, but what if you are right here, alive and well in the most obvious? Have we been so busy peering through the mist that we have overlooked your presence before our very eyes? When we pass a vibrant tree or shining shrub, something stirs within us; could it be telling us something about your hope for the world? Might the face of a stranger be offering a clue to the depth of your love?
We confess that we speed through our hours, giving only a passing nod to our surroundings; but you may be speaking to us in every encounter. Unless we learn to observe that which is oh, so near, we may never understand what you long to share.
O Present One, you are not particularly concerned with our peak insights or our other-worldly experiences, but are more interested in the changing texture of our hearts. We confess we have thwarted our spiritual growth by discounting the everyday. Your Son teaches that it is never too late to initiate this heart-work, so slow our steps and sharpen our vision, we pray, that we might detect your Holiness that lives within our day, and to take time to reflect upon each meaning.
Merciful Lord, although we cannot know heaven’s ways, we do believe that you are working within each of us, and desire the best for us; therefore, we lift up our deepest gratitude for what you are bringing about in our lives, and also lift up our pressing concerns before your throne of grace:
- Thank you for praying: sister’s colon surgery Monday was a success
- Gratitude for those contributing to our Benevolence Fund
- Prayers appreciated: depression is lifting for young wife
- Couple in CO appreciate prayers: home was saved during wildfires
- Thankful for prayers: symptoms are decreasing for one w/ virus
- Member expresses gratitude for daily contact from church, assisting her in dealing with loneliness
- Prayers & protection for young teacher: in isolation in Mexico City, preparing for a course of professional study
- Friend with head & neck cancer, relief for painful radiation burns
- Prayers: cherished sister in hospice care in FLA; peace for family
- Wisdom for doctors: healing of a mother’s infection
- 2 relatives with Covid-19 & also recovering from Hurricane Sally
- Healing a friend’s heart failure; diagnosis of young daughter’s illness
- Healing of grief: Parents of 39-year-old who died of addictions
- A relative needing to follow the Spirit
- Adult children in TX, endeavoring to help mother w/ dementia
- Dear friend in TX w/ dementia; strength for adult son & caregiver
- Friend with kidney cancer, continuing to trust in God thru all his days
You are that Sacred Magnet that pulls us toward your Center. We in the human community all live in that divine energy that is your holiness, which has much to teach us. What we learn from the other we learn about ourselves; when we help another, we somehow discover our own needs. Our small minds cannot fully grasp this mystery, but we are all bound together in Jesus, the Kingdom that has drawn near, who even now invites us to pray:
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.
