Prayers for the Week of February 18, 2024

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, February 18, 2024:

Loving God,

you have created us for life in community,

life in relationship,

life lived out in love

with you and all creation.

You accompany us in all of our wanderings,

encouraging our right steps,

and steadying us in our stumbles.

You seek us out as we are

and make more of us than we could ever imagine.

Your grace abounds,

and we give you thanks and praise.

You created universes and galaxies,

and you care about the tender moments of our days,

and so we bring you the concerns that weigh on our hearts.

We stand in the midst of a hurting world.

We pray for those who are ailing in body or in spirit,

we pray for healing and wholeness.

For those who are unhoused, we pray for shelter.

For those who are hungry, food enough and more.

For those who grieve, comfort.

For those who are lonely,

we pray for companions along the way.

We pray for the troubles of the world.

We pray for the people of Gaza,

for an immediate and complete ceasefire,

for an end to the indiscriminate killing,

for a peace that comes with justice,

and an end to systems of apartheid and every kind of oppression.

We remember, too, the people of Ukraine,

and those in the path of war and violence everywhere.

We pray for your peace.

We pray for the dismantling of systems of oppression in our own nation,

particularly systems of American racism.

And we pray for the world – for the Earth that we have pillaged and damaged –

in this time of climate unravelling,

teach us ways of living that lessen the harm we have set in motion,

and that call us into new, sustainable relationships with all creation.

Loving Christ, in the midst of the deep need of the world,

we seek your abundance,

we pray for your justice, your healing, your peace.

Open our hearts so that we can see

how we can help you make it so.

Thank you for the gift of life in community,

and for calling us always into deeper relationship

with you and with each other.

With all those who have ever called on you,

in every time and place, we join our voices, with theirs,

praying the prayer that Jesus taught:

Our Father/Mother, 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 sins, as we forgive those who sin 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.

 Photo credit: Jamie Morrison, used with permission via Unsplash