Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of August 11, 2021
Written by Rev. Jan Buxton Wade
All praise to you, O Living Bread, for you gave your own flesh and blood that we might know the essence of true life. You gave your heart, mind, spirit, hopes, dreams, and concerns that we might understand the love of the Father. Ah, the manner in which you wish to abide within us is a great mystery; yet once we have felt you in the very sinews of our souls, we never wish to live without that sustenance that allows us to thrive in this difficult world.
God of Goodness, hear our prayer.
Lord, we remember it was Jesus himself who wore the robe of Teacher, knowing full well the distinct challenges such a calling would bring. Therefore, we pray this week that insight and stamina be given to all those who educate students at every level, that they might be sufficiently equipped for the ministry to which you have called them. Bless all the young people in our church family and within our community who wait to be taught, to be encouraged, to be understood, to grow in knowledge and wisdom. Be at work in the homes of every family, attending each young one physically and spiritually, that they might trust Christ as their Teacher and their Eternal Guide.
God of Goodness, hear our prayer.
O Merciful Spirit, only you can erase the bruises which our failures have left upon our hearts. You alone know the desires and hopes buried deep inside us. We trust that you would find within us a profound longing to live a godly and upright life. Such a yearning, we know, cannot happen without your underlying direction. Give us hearts to practice daily scripture reading and reflection upon your word, to become disciplined in listening for your voice, which often comes as a mere whisper. Assist us in remaining faithful to the commitments we have undertaken this season for the sake of your church: to contribute generously, to greet, to teach and guide, to plan, to pray, to oversee, to build and repair, to chair a committee, to feed the hungry, to visit and transport the infirm.
God of Goodness, hear our prayer.
We lift up those within our own church family who are in sorrow, pain, sickness, or other hardship, and also those who are close to our hearts. Throughout this week, may each receive your light of reassurance. Steel us with courage to face our burdens, so that in the end we may be counted among your faithful:
Thanksgivings:
- Five have recovered from Covid
- Gratitude for healthcare workers going the second mile
- Gratitude for young ones who model for us the love of learning
- Praises that sister-in-law hospitalized with Covid to be released soon
- Family grateful for the diagnosis of a father’s illness
- Thanksgiving for safe and happy visit with relatives in Illinois
- Gratitude for family reunion in Arkansas
- The blessing of our church choirs
- Family gives thanks for upcoming wedding
- Couple celebrate their wedding anniversary
- Spirit’s presence with a family during a bereavement
- Member thankful for Covid healing
Concerns:
- For an increase in virus vaccinations within our population
- Strength, courage for daughter caring for ill parent
- Wisdom and safety for community in another Covid surge
- Family mourning death of cherished mother
- Healing prayers for very weak member, hospitalized
- Sustaining our understaffed hospitals and weary staffs
- Courage for grandson paralyzed in diving accident
- An end to violence in our schools and community
- Help for a mother, caregiver for ill adult son
- Safe delivery of a first grandchild
- Longtime friend in Cleveland, longterm illness
- Prayers for KCS staff and students
- God’s presence with four struggling families
- Prayers for member recovering from an amputation
- Healing mercies for member with ALS
- Hospitalized cousin, seriously ill with Covid
- Wisdom in diagnosing an intestinal malady
- Two dealing with ongoing depression, for burdens to lift
- Grace and blessings for brother with metastatic cancer
O God Who Listens, we thank you for receiving our praises and petitions this day, knowing your hand will be upon us. Hear us now as our voices and hearts join together in offering the words of your Beloved, the Bread of Life, who taught 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.
