3 November 2024 – Prayer on All Saints’ Day

O God, you are the God of all time and all space, of all creation, including all humans. And we set aside today to remember the saints, knowing that the whole sinner/saint realm is within your love and care. I matter to you. Tend to my own aching, breaking, broken and grieving heart. It is broken from all the death and destruction I know about from around the world to the deeply personal losses in my own life. Grief is so hard. And it’s so necessary. So make me brave enough to feel it. To name it for myself as a realty. And to know a life without grief is no life at all. Remind me, faithful God, that you are the God of suffering. You ask me to follow you into the fray of life – so you sent Jesus to show me the way to die. And through him, I see that I am not alone in all of life’s betrayals and brutalities. And you cry with me. And you promise to be with me. And you don’t promise that life won’t hurt. You don’t promise me that my dearest ones won’t die. You tell me the truth. You tell me the truth. And then you are with me in all of it.

So help me. Help me today to lead my people into the truth of your cross. The Good News. It is at the heart of my call, and yet, so often it seems I’m asked to care about things that seem purely peripheral. So help me to create a generous and faithful space and time for a divine encounter with you. Through acknowledging that death is part of all our stories. Help me to name death out loud and to say thank you in the same breath. Even when my voice quakes and I cry. And even when I don’t. You are with me and remind me that death does not have the last word. You do.

Oh to be human. What a hard and good gift. Thank you, God, for the saints in my life that have loved me and shaped me and made me who I am and will be. Amen.

Deep breaths dear pastor, dear deacon, dear chaplain. Your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Don’t be afraid. God is with you.