Prayers for Life’s Unfolding

 

…created in your image… (Carl Larsson, 1853-1919)

In response to prayer requests today for financial and employment fears and a little girl’s loss of her beloved kitty-cat

ANXIETY AND LACK

Almighty God, each day and every hour do you reveal the beauty of your spirit in creation, and by wonders you perform we learn to know you. How can we then fail to love you with our hearts, our souls, and our minds? You have created in each of your children a masterpiece, a lively spirit, perpetually renewed, ageless and unwearied. To each one of us do you impart particular gifts, no two the same, for you have made us in your image, one by one, and we receive not by what we deserve, not as reward, but out of your immeasurable love—ours to receive, embrace, and celebrate with gratitude.

O God, now send your Holy Spirit to your children to enfold, protect, and cherish. You give not meagerly but out of such abundance that we cannot help but receive it thankfully and with a grateful heart. Where there is difficulty, give us vision to see past it, far beyond, to your eternal presence and your perfect grace. Now guide us hour by hour and day by day along the path of holiness to joy and satisfaction. Be our portion, meat and drink, in thought and word and deed. May we then celebrate your generosity, becoming likewise openhanded and compassionate.

…the earth’s abundance…

Where we perceive that there is lack, open our eyes to all the gifts surrounding us and keep fresh our certainty that you, God, are the answer to all questions, the solution to all problems and perplexities. As we grow closer to you… hour by hour and day by day… may we feel the palpable and present love you have for us above all else. May it be our first thought in the morning and our last before we close our eyes. May we turn to you in joy and sorrow, sure of your wisdom, mercy, grace, and forgiveness, and your perfect love. God, may your will be done. Amen.

GRIEVING

?Willem Jan Willemsen 1866-1914

Dear God, what an astonishing creation you have given us in which to alternate activity and rest, where every creature great and small was made no two alike by you for holy purpose. Thank you, God, for prayer, our sacred conversation. We lift up to you our families, friends, companions—those on earth and those who have passed on. When death takes loved ones from our midst, we pray for healing, even as we know that they still live in ways mysterious to us. May we emerge from grieving to remember them with fewer tears and greater joy… for in your wisdom and compassion you have given us the love of family and friends who mourn with us and comfort us until the pain begins to ease. May loss not take our innocence and trust but leave us with a reverence for life, compassion quickly stirred by others’ suffering, wisdom and energy to offer aid and comfort. May we know you by those mercies, sense your presence, hear your voice, and glimpse your glory. Help us realize that we are needed by the living, who require our love and cherishing. In thankfulness and praise we offer this our prayer. Amen.

WORK

Almighty God, your love is beyond measure. To follow you is to live a life transformed and jubilant. Thank you, dear God, for the great gift of work. May it bring us joy and satisfaction. In it may your name be glorified. Send your Holy Spirit, God, to wrap us in tranquility and peace during transitions in our work life. May indecision, stress, discouragement, and uncertainty not overwhelm us. Lift us high and ever higher, should we slide in the direction of depression and anxiety. Then shine your light to guide us in the way that you would have us go. May your will be done, O God, in new, more nurturing employment or in our growth and inspiration where we are presently assigned. Make work the perfect channel for our gifts, our talents, our inclinations, and our energy. May we be blessed and likewise be a blessing to friends and colleagues, customers and clients, supervisors and assistants.

Dutch illustrator Hannie Holt 1940s

We pray for the encouragement of families, who give us strength when work leaves us feeling drained. Fortify all our relationships, particularly those most fragile and most vulnerable to the effects of stress. May our communication be loving, honest, and generous. Be present in our interaction, and may our harmony bless others and inspire them. Even now, God, you are working for our benefit, our healing, and our victory. We pray for renewed perspectives and grateful hearts, made strong and tender in your care. Send miracles, dear God—your grace made manifest in ways our minds can’t penetrate. Now let us rest in you and trust. Amen.

PROSPERITY

…prosperity and purpose… (Helena Lam) 

Merciful God, you shower us with blessings too numerous to count, too great to measure, and we bring you praise and thanks for giving us this day, so full of promise and of possibility, and for the gift—astonishing, perpetual—of prayer. And so I pray for true and genuine prosperity and for your bounty to be recognized, embraced, and celebrated. Sustain our minds and bodies so that they are radiant, made whole and strong and glowing with well-being. May your Holy Spirit enfold and heal us at every moment in the unfolding of our lives, at home, in travel, in the workplace, school, and place of worship. Bless our families and make our homes both safe and welcoming, places of activity and rest, where your spirit reigns. Meet our  financial needs and more, so that we are able to be generous as well as adequately fed and sheltered. And may our prayer be carried on the wings of angels and laid at your feet in confidence and trust. Amen.

 

 

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Let Them Fly

Making the decision to have a child—it’s momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. —Elizabeth Stone

Sister Alma Rose Prays for Parents 

Father-Mother God, Almighty One,
beloved source of every blessing, now
encountered intimately, mystically, awakening
delight; now momentarily, a lightning bolt of
blinding clarity; now in the storm, a dim
remembering, a formless, vivid knowing far
beyond the reach of knowledge; you are above,
beneath, within. You are vast thrumming
loveliness—yet some call you invisible.

Thus you send us children to arouse us from
insensibility and ease, for we must follow them
into the wilderness, where strength and
competence are burdensome; surrender is
the only power. On and on you draw us, past
endurance, like the fabled pull of Everest.

Thus you teach us of your immanence just in
the hour of our hubris; thus do you persist in
casting us against the limits that we didn’t even
know existed; yes, you give us children then, as
we begin to think we’ve reached our hearts’
capacity to give unselfishly, to feel another’s
pain, another’s victory. What did we know of
devastation at each small or sudden separation—
even as we wisely guide toward independence,
something dies inside; and yet, such unanticipated
bliss, the joy of souls caressing, in the brushing
of a small boy’s curl from off his forehead, in the
holding of a drowsy little girl exhausted by
the day’s investigations: flowers to be plucked
and yellow pollen blown aloft, and fragile petals,
soft and lavender, examined, gathered in a bowl.

They come not to but through us; they are never
ours to hold, and it is death to try, though feeling
sometimes triumphs over reason. Bless us all,
O God, as we protect them, as we catch them when
they fall, and in their season, let them fly;
for when their wings can bear them up, and
separation comes, and comes again, you are
where you have ever
been.

———–

Photo by ME, of my granddaughter Ava, age 3, at her first T-ball game

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