Prayers for the Week of March 27, 2022

Artwork: “Inexplicable Joy,"

created by Hannah Garrity,

used with permission via SanctifiedArts

Please feel free to join us in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, March 27, 2022:

Creating, nurturing, welcoming God,

God of love and life and more life,

God of friendship, family, and community,

your grace reaches farther than

all that pulls us apart,

and you draw us back home,

reminding us that we are created

to live life together,

each of us, all of us,

forgiven, loved, and free.

For every separation in this world,

we pray your reconciling, healing presence.

In a world of war, we pray for peace.

We pray for peace in Ukraine, and for all nations.

We pray for those whose homes lie in the path of battle.

We pray for those who have fled for safety,

help us and the world to welcome in

those who are far from home.

We pray for an end to every kind of violence everywhere.

We pray for an end to systems of oppression,

particularly American systemic racism,

systems designed and sustained to benefit some,

and harm others.

Show us our complicity in those system,

and give us the courage to stop,

and to join in the work of repair.

We pray for an end to our destruction of the earth,

for the wisdom and courage to change our ways,

and to live in healing relationship with all creation.

We pray for families in every kind of challenge,

for the quest for a living wage and work with meaning,

for the yearning of parents that their children will be safe and well,

so that they might thrive, and grow into all they are created to be,

for the relief and healing and help for every kind of struggle.

For those who are hungry, we pray for food enough and more,

for those who are unhoused – shelter,

for those who are lonely – companionship, relationship, and love,

for those who are ailing in body or in spirit –

your abundant healing.

Loving God,

for all the ways we drift from each other and from you,

in your prodigal grace,

draw us home, and

hold us together in your loving heart.

Loved by you, along with the whole wide world,

with everyone you have ever loved,

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.