Please feel free to join is in the prayers prayed in worship Sunday, May 29, 2022:
God of love and tender mercy,
in the deep grief of this week,
we come to you in our lament.
You have created all that is –
in love –
and even so –
we have built a world so full of violence and hate.
Help us.
We pray this morning particularly for children.
We pray for the children who were victims of this week’s shooting –
for lives cut short –
we thank you for the love and life they brought into the world –
and we lean into the promise and hope of Resurrection –
that they are with you, safe and loved, forever.
We pray for families grieving unimaginable loss.
Help us to embody comfort and healing
in a world so broken and raw with pain.
We pray for your love and wisdom and power
to build a better world –
a world where all children can live free and thrive
where they are safe from all that would do them harm
where all of your children can grow
into all that you have created them to be.
We pray for the dismantling of systems that do harm –
systems that nurture a culture of violence,
systems that willfully ignore the inherent dangers of guns,
systems that harm people on the basis of who they are.
In a nation that claims to be a government by the people,
we realize that those systems are us.
Call us to account.
Where we are complicit, stop us from doing harm.
Give us the courage and the strength
to do the work that is ours to do.
On this Memorial Day,
we pray for all who have served sacrificially,
for all the life they lived,
the lives they gave,
so that all your children might live free.
We pray for all your children,
for those who are ailing, in body or Spirit,
we pray for healing;
for those who are lonely, companionship;
for those who are unhoused, shelter;
for those who are hungry, food enough and more.
God of love and tender mercy,
you have created all that is
in love
and you love us still.
Your power of Resurrection is stronger
than everything that does us harm.
Empower us to live fully as your New Creation,
living lives of justice, healing, and peace.
Loved by you,
we join our voices with all those who have ever called your name,
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: Johnny Gios, used with permission via Unsplash