Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of February 23, 2022
Rev. Jan Buxton Wade
Scripture tells us your spark of divinity resides within each of us. And whatever essence this spark is, we confess, such a notion of innate holiness unnerves us. Therefore, we have lacquered it over by our own illusions and self-interests. We wear our masks of acceptability, hoping we will fit in with the culture. We scramble to acquire the newest baubles on the market, reach for the fleeting, and attend to the voices of promoters who promise lives of ease and tranquility. Help us remove these barriers we have erected through the years that keep us from seeing ourselves as we really are, for we are children searching for the easy way. Surely your prayers and ours are the same: That we might work, trusting in your mercy, to expunge each layer of falseness within us, till one day we stand before you as our unvarnished selves, with all are fallacies cast aside, with all our divine possibilities shining in brightness.
Hope of the World, hear our prayer.
A wise one once attested that “in the end, nature is enough.” How true it is that you speak to us, Holy One, through the language of the universe, in the dialect of love that is understood by every race and tribe. The earth itself is your sacramental gift to humankind, and when we ignore it or mar it, it devalues your offering and pierces your heart. Silence, we pray, all that muffles your daily call to your people throughout the world. May we recognize your magnificence in the frame of the smallest leaf, in the glorious potential of the smallest seed, in the wind that calls forth the seasons. Then may we bend the knee in homage to the One whose breath plants life wherever it passes and whose stillness is sufficient to saturate every soul.
Hope of the World, hear our prayer.
The present perils of the world weigh heavy upon us, O Lord. The thunder of tanks and vibrations of jets disclose the violence already at hand. We pray for all the vulnerable ones in Eastern Europe whose lives and livelihoods are in jeopardy because of the menace of war. May your word of peace ring out, we pray, to shatter the sword and quell the drug-related cruelty rampant in the Philippines, in Yemen, Brazil, Venezuela, and Mexico. We lift up those affected by the deadly mudslides in Brazil, and all in developing countries where Covid rates remain high. Stand beside those persecuted ones everywhere because of their ethnicity, gender, or social class. Behind our posturing and claims of self-sufficiency, we are a frail people, dependent upon one another and upon your enduring mercy. Strengthen our resolve, Good Lord, for whatever lies ahead.
Hope of the World, hear our prayer.
May our prayers mingle with all those offered for the suffering in every place; and we add these concerns and thanksgivings that are offered by our friends, your beloved ones, at Church Street UMC:
- Gratitude for new church members, that they may find a place of joyful service among us
- Grateful for prayers: Two arrived safely to new home in Texas
- Appreciation for prayers: Father in hospice is having good days
- Thanksgiving for the blessing of our music ministry
- Offering thanks for Stephen Ministry and blessings of all now in training
- Thanksgiving for safe and meaningful Confirmation Retreat
- Member thankful for steady healing following spinal surgery
- Family celebrates birth of healthy first grandson Feb 20 in Colorado
- Gratitude for a dear friend’s 98th birthday last week
- Member sends gratitude for prayers – vastly improved from Covid
- Prayers for cousin’s successful liver transplant March 8
- Continued prayers for all testing positive for Covid
- Healing prayers for bereaved family whose uncle died suddenly and whose wife remains ill
- Courage and strength for young pregnant mother
- Strengthening of a Sunday School Class
- Courage, healing for adult son with diabetes, as he faces amputations
- Prayers for healing clergy person suffering from congestive heart failure
- Upholding family of young serviceman who died suddenly last week
- Prayers for all members adjusting to residing in assisted living
- Guidance for family struggling with caring for infirm sister
- Direction and courage for friend divorcing
- Beloved cousin in treatment for ovarian cancer
- School counselors working with children grieving the sudden death of a young classmate
- Continued prayers for two families – wives caring for ill husbands
- Comfort for all church families grieving losses
- Prayers for healing for one suffering severe eye damage
- For an open door of opportunity for a young man’s work
- Hope and healing for young friend with metastatic cancer
- Prayers for an 8-year-old’s emotional healing
- God’s healing presence with sister following massive stroke
Hope of the World, we believe you have accepted all our prayers that are offered in earnest, and ask that your holy presence would surround and sustain us throughout life’s journey; for we walk day by day with Jesus, 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.
