Attentive
Nervous
Thoughtful
Incarnation
Concerned
Immanuel
Preparing
Awaiting
Testify
Expecting
The season of Advent, literally “the coming,” holds special significance for many anticipating justice.
The United Nations reports that 117.3 million people are currently displaced from their homes due to war, environmental disasters, and political instability. People from Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Myanmar, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine, and Venezuela face ongoing emergencies and WAIT for a more stable and permanent home, whether displaced in their home country or another country.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
It is likely that China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, and the United States have the most persons WAITING to be executed, as Amnesty International reports that more executions take place in these five countries than other nations.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
Combined sources list parents, children, and significant others from Ukraine, Syria, Sudan, and Yemen as those most anxiously WAITING for their loved ones to return home from war.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
Camps in Turkey, Germany, Iran, Pakistan, and Uganda house more people from other nations who AWAIT a permanent home than any other host countries.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
According to the United States Department of Health & Human Services’ Office of Administration for Children & Families, children from Guatemala, Honduras, and El Salvador constitute 79 percent of all youth WAITING for homes as unaccompanied children.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
And the latest trials faced by our neighbors WAITING for freedom in South Korea and Georgia. This very week, the world witnessed attempted clampdowns on freedom of expression and arrest of political opponents.
To you O Lord, my soul in stillness waits, truly my heart is in you.
Creator God,
we await the dawning of your Light, Jesus Christ.
May his coming dispel the darkness of hatred and violence, of fear and despair.
Illumine our communities with the light of peace and mercy,
that our homes may be places of welcome to all
who knock on our door and come to our table.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, Your Light to the world.
Amen.
(adapted from a prayer in Deacon Jay Cormier’s The Advent Wreath: Blessings and Prayers for Families and Households)
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