Aug 4, 2024 Prayer for the Pastor, Chaplain, Deacon

You can listen to Laura pray for you right here: https://www.cgpmn.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/Aug-4-prayer.m4a

God of Abundance,

Forgive my growling stomach, my impatient heart, my tightened grasping fingers. Today is another day to remember who you are. And it helps me remember who I am. Yours. I’m yours. And that matters. It makes all the difference. Otherwise I might get overwhelmed by hospital rooms and worry, funerals and dysfunctional families. Newsletter articles that I’m certain no one reads. Council meetings and people misbehaving. People are so good at people-ing and it can all just be too much. Not to mention my own people – my own family and my own relationships outside of church. So I could so easily show up to worship with this swirling, nitpicking, vibrating body that does not indicate your faithfulness to me. Why does this feel so normal sometimes? Gah! I want certainty, but only on my own terms. I want to plan ahead and get things sorted and I just want to KNOW. You know? So help me remember you, and that your promise of life, of being filled with the kind of life that cannot be sorted and stored away or even really pointed to is for me. Sure, I’ll point to it for others as best I can using my voice and my being. But right now, help me remember this life is for me. And let it simply be enough for today. Because you promise enough for all time. And for today.

So help me be present to the ones who are dearest and closest to me today. Present in the way that reminds me you are in the midst of it all. That your love is the only way I can even attempt love. So help me to forgive and be forgiven. Help me to breathe in and breathe out before I speak. Or just remind me of your love through the love of 4-legged companions hogging the couch or through a sibling’s text or phone call. There’s hardly a way you don’t show up to show love, God. Thanks for never giving up on getting to my heart. Amen.

Take a deep breath, dear deacon, dear pastor, dear chaplain. For your labor in the Lord is not in vain. Don’t be afraid. God is with you.