30 March 2025 Prayer for the Pastor, Deacon, Chaplain

You can listen and pray with Pastor Laura right here.

Foolish God, I don’t mean to start out name calling or anything, but your love for me and for the world looks, well, foolish I guess. You don’t keep track of the things I continue to drag around behind me or carry on my shoulders. The burdens that are like my shadow are not even visible to you. Or, rather, you look past them, pretending to not see them. You only see me. Sometimes this calling has me sulking in the corner, in the shadows, resentful of the party going on around me that I have not planned or orchestrated or eloquently pointed to. Or they’re not doing it right. It’s never how I imagined – the reality of your grace that is. How it plays out in life all around me. And in my own life too. Will you open my eyes to it, please? And I can barely ask you to break open my heart, because I know how painful that is. And sometimes, it would seem, I only respond or change when it hurts. So open me up, wake me up to your foolish love that is for me. Even though my heart will wander, it will leave the God I love. And yet, you are always running toward me. Waiting for me. Meeting me. Cutting off my well-crafted sermon or excuse or tall tale. None of that matters to you. Only I do. It’s really just impossible to fathom. To breathe it in and see that it is for me, to feel it in my bones.

Let this grace wash over me and wash over my colleagues in ministry. Free us from the sulking corners of the church. Let your mercy and love break in on me, and my good colleagues, and especially, especially on my family. It is only by your grace that we love each other at all.

Yes, God, foolish, foolish God. You’ve called me to the party. What joy to be yours. Amen.

Breathe deep, good colleagues. Pastors, deacons, and chaplains. You are not alone. God is with you. Party on!