7 Prayers That Work

 Oh, Lord,  You are the God of comfort . Teach me to grieve .  It makes me uncomfortable, but it's so necessary for healing and perspective. Help me to trust your love and care enough to lean into pain and trauma and the wild uncertainty of hard times, of personal and collective  crisis . You are a God of compassion . Teach me to grieve for others. give me perspective and empathy and sincerity that other people's experiences are different and just as traumatic and difficult than my own. Maybe even more! I want to be kind and willing to sit with them in their pain without passing judgment,  assuming I have the answers, or teaching them how to feel or act in their pain. You are a God of forgiveness . Teach me to be forgiving when I feel that someone has wronged me, misunderstood me,  or hurt me. You give us chances, over and over-- a thousand million chances to change, to repent, to revive, to follow. Help me repent of my own sin and refuse to be the judge...

Lord, Comforter and Redeemer, Take these troubled times and bring good from them. Somehow, throw your spirit of comfort like a mantle over the grieving, over those traumatized by the Charlottesville rally, and most of all over those injured and killed there. Infiltrate their homes and their conversations-- let your spirit be felt. Comfort those grieving for loved ones lost through senseless violence. Bring justice, swift and sure. Not revenge. That is not your way. But justice, peace, and sanity to a situation raging out of control. May this tragedy in Charlottesville wake up a sleepy country to the ravages of deep-seated prejudice and hatred. Somehow, draw us toward your spirit of wisdom, fill us with a desire and determination to be loving, forgiving, compassionate, determined. Give us the courage to stand for righteousness, to shirk stubbornness and pride, to abhor hatred. Change us. And even while you work so great a miracle, lighten the heavy hearts of ...