Weekly Prayers for the Church Street Family
Week of June 27, 2021
Written by Rev. Catherine Nance
Almighty God, we call you all-powerful, omnipotent, and yet we look to other powers to restore us. Before we reach out to anything or anyone else, may we acknowledge that you are the power that called forth creation, the power that called us into community; and it was by your power that our Savior Jesus Christ was raised from the dead. What other power would we want flowing towards us?
Gracious God, Mark’s gospel relates two remarkable stories of healing – one a child who seemed to have had everything and one a woman who has lost everything. These show us we have hope for healing within our own lives. We pray for healing in communities where there is despair; from our own Hawkins County as we think about a little girl to families anxiously awaiting news about loved ones in Florida. We pray for our city as citizens and law enforcement strive to work together that we may all live in peace. Lord, have mercy on all of those who need to hear your words of comfort.
O Christ, we call you healer, the great physician. Our bodies are broken and worn down, we have friends and family who are suffering from disease. You have heard us name them in our hearts. We are so bold to pray for healing, but before we can ask for flesh and bone to be restored, for organs to be renewed, we must confess that our spirits are diseased. Cleanse our spirits, soften our hearts, and open our minds so that your healing power can flow through us to all whom you love, also these, your children at Church Street:
- Sustaining member having glaucoma procedures
- Close friend’s mother who is nearing death (100 yrs)
- Our needy neighbors and all who work for their betterment
- Parents worried about a son’s addiction, for his healing
- Member mourning the death of her aunt last week
- Members mourning the sudden death of their brother
- Healing for a cherished wife who is hospitalized
- God’s healing for an alcoholic brother
- Continued prayers for husband with liver disease
- Parents who are both suffering major illnesses
- Blessings for Christian couple married June 30 in Belfast
- Guidance and direction for troubled teenage nephew
- Strength for daughter grieving recent family deaths
- Wife & husband recovering from surgeries
- God’s continued presence with beloved sister in decline
- Reparation of a broken relationship
- Easing of depression and healing for professional singer who is ill
- Sustaining a sister whose family burdens are heavy
- Our members in memory care
As you continue your holy work in all our lives, Caring Lord, accept these prayers of gratitude for your power working on our behalf:
- Prayers appreciated — wife recovering well from colon surgery
- Family celebrating a new pregnancy — first grandchild
- Thanksgiving for husband’s recovery from recent illness
- Appreciation for work of Parish Health Team
- Thankful for a daughter’s visit from the West Coast
- Gratitude for God’s mercy during a family’s bereavement
- Thankful for niece’s safe arrival home from Kosovo
- Friend celebrating return home following a year’s therapy from invasive surgery
- Thankful for prayers — hospitalized wife is improving
Your love, your grace, your compassion, O God, bring wholeness. We need wholeness and we long to hear you say to us: “Go in peace.” Give us that grace to truly walk in peace, discarding anger, resentment or smugness. And forgive us, we pray, when we set up barriers that keep people from you. May we be followers, may we be a church willing to make room, to make a way for people to get to you. And ay we all hear the words, “You are healed.”
All these prayers and petitions we lift up in earnest this day, in the name of your Son, that Great Channel of Peace, who taught us to pray:
