O God, you are the one in whom we live and love and have our being. As you dwell within us, there is nothing that can separate us from your love and grace. Although at times the pain, trauma, and hurt of this world can overwhelm us. Life feels just too much. Come alongside us so that we may lay down our heavy burden and collapse in your comforting embrace.

Source of Hope, there are some of your beloved children who know suffering and trauma as constant companions. Places in your beloved creation where violence and tyranny are commonplace, and generosity and grace are unfamiliar. Therefore, we ask that your Holy Spirit descend upon the many corners of this world in need of your liberating love and abiding peace.

• We pray for your children in Sudan where the military has seized power and dissolved the civilian-led transitional government. Pro-democracy protesters flooded the street and security forces have opened fire– killing three and wounding eighty.
• We pray for your children in Haiti where gangs are blocking ports and cutting off access to fuel shipments. Hospitals are on the verge of shutting down as generators run dry, people cannot communicate with loved ones as cellphone towers are without power, and people become more food insecure each day.
• We pray for your children in Iraq where the Islamic State has claimed responsibility for an attack in the Diyala killing eleven people.

Lord loosen the grip that hatred and cruelty have a grip on human hearts. Bring solace to the weary, comfort to the affiliated, shelter to the vulnerable, freedom to the oppressed, mercy to the guilty, love to the lonely.

Christ, we deceive ourselves if we say we have no sin. You call us to love our neighbors as ourselves and to protect the least of these.  And yet so often we fall short.

• We pray for your children in Ghana where a proposed bill would impose harsh penalties on the LGBTQ community and is supported by the Anglican Church of Ghana.

• We uplift a prayer of hope as the Vatican shared that Pope Francis expressed a willingness to visit Canada after a 2015 National Truth and Reconciliation Commission declared residential schools, a system of mandatory boarding schools for Indigenous children mostly operated by Catholic organizations, was a form of “cultural genocide.”

May we all have the humility to recognize when we have failed to love one another as you love us. Give us the strength to stand up against the injustices and atrocities we witness, particularly when they are being done in your name. Wherever we see brokenness, teach us to learn of our own brokenness and help us to bring healing.

O Great Creator, we thank you for all the ways that your bounteous and beautiful creation provides and cares for us. Yet so often, we are careless stewards. Rather than a precious gift, we see it as disposable and made for our own consumption. We pray for world leaders as they prepare to gather next week for the COP26 conference in Glasgow, United Kingdom. May they put aside personal motives and political agendas to work together to find ways to cut greenhouse gas emissions. We are all affected by climate change yet, it is so often the most vulnerable and marginalized whose lives and wellbeing are impacted the most.

Holy One, the pandemic continues to be the backdrop to our lives. We are so far from where we want to be. We are grateful for the recent news of the Pfizer vaccine being approved for emergency use for children ages 5-11 in the United States. Yet, vaccination inequity remains a pervasive problem. In the United States 69 percent of American adults are fully vaccinated and 15 million adults have already received booster shots. While only 44 percent of people in Latin America and the Caribbean have been vaccinated. Help us to see the ways that our health and wellbeing are inextricably tied to one another. Remove our scarcity mindset for there are no borders to your love, no boundaries between who you call us and care for.

We pray all of this in the name of your Son and our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.