Loving God, you desire for us the gift of connection. Your creation was not complete until you had imagined for us the mutual blessing of human community, and we struggle to thrive outside of that community still. When we pray, we weave our hopes and dreams for others together with their own, creating a community of care by our words, our acts, and our faith.
Hear us as we seek your best for each other, here, together, in prayer.
We find ourselves still flipping through our phones, still watching our screens, in disbelief at the destructive power of floodwater, hurricane devastation spread from familiar coastal areas into the mountains. We pray with words, and then without them when words run out, for those who are known to us, and for those who are strangers to us, who struggle with loss and ruin, while we struggle with how to help.
Help us to be informed, and generous, and tenacious in paying attention, for the need will be extensive and lasting. We pray for protection from the jadedness and dulling of compassion that sometimes comes with exhaustion in those called to care, and for protection from despair and bitterness that sometimes comes with exhaustion in those who suffer such great loss. Remind us that community can shine in storms like these.
For times when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We know that the everyday world, with its own particular struggles, continues turning when floodwaters rise. For those who are hurting, who we call by name—friends and family—when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We know that when critical needs arise, the demand can stretch available resources to the breaking point, as everyday cries for caring attention continue as before. For needs in our own community, when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We know that times of disaster and crisis summon the temptation to grandstand, and to blame, in those with sudden responsibility and attention focused on them. The desire to serve and the desire to look good doing it compete in the ego. For those who have accepted positions of influence or power in our government, when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We know that the twisted sadnesses of war, famine, terror, and systematic injustice do not pause when our attention is turned toward domestic concerns, and our hearts must be big enough to fit the troubles of our global neighbors alongside our own. For the world, when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We know, though we may not say, that storm winds and floodwaters batter our own souls, now and then. Some of us are bold about signing our own disaster declarations, while others of us manage our crumbling emotional infrastructures without a word to anyone, weathering our storms alone, picking up the debris all by ourselves. We can’t find our way to community. For our own lives, when floodwaters wash away what felt solid and established, we pray…
We pray today with the gathered family of faith around the world, in the way Jesus taught his disciples to pray, saying:
Our Father, which 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 debts
As we forgive our debtors.
And lead us not into temptation
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory
Forever. Amen.
By Rev. Leigh Anne Armstrong (BSK 2024) for CBF Multi-vocational Ministry Cohort
