Note from this week’s writer: Many of us in the U.S. can’t get the images out of our minds of the disastrous flash flood in Texas this week. We hold those images before us as we pray for all all facing disasters throughout the world.
Read Psalm 46:1-7.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. When I cry, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. Come, and listen to me. ~ Taizé
Dear God, Creator of All of Us, Our Comforter Who Loves Us All,
We make our dwelling places in almost every little pocket of the Earth, where we hope to find a secure place to live in safety for our families, enough water to drink and food to sustain us, a good rhythm of work and rest, friends and neighbors to live alongside as we grow together, and beauty to lift and console our spirits. In every part of the world where we make our homes, we, your creatures, pray for the presence of these gifts in our lives.
Yet often we find ourselves lamenting the sorrows of the world. We feel our hearts breaking and tears rushing down our cheeks, and through our bodies, it seems, like floodwaters. Because you created us all in your image, God, our neighbors’ sorrows are our sorrows.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. When I cry, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. Come, and listen to me.
We pray for the daily death toll in Gaza as children and their parents try to collect scarce food aid. Yesterday another 8 children and 7 adults died in attacks while doing this. In Yemen, almost 17 million children and adults, threatened with loss of access to food aid due to reductions in donations, are classed by Aid agencies as suffering severe malnutrition. Parents go without food so their children can eat what little they can get. The parents’ health is suffering.
Yasen-al-Khulaidi, one of so many in Yemen, as well as many in refugee camps in Kenya, Sudan and other places of war and unrest, reports: as a father of 4, a school teacher in the southern city of Taiz, who also supports his elderly parents, he only receives his salary irregularly. After 2 months without payment, he asked his wife to move in with her family while he stays in a makeshift room that was initially a shop to avoid paying rent. Yasen-al-Khulaidi also has gallbladder, kidney and colon problems, which he believes are caused by living on bread and water for so long. “We are living in misery – struggling every day to get food, clean water, cooking gas, school supplies and healthcare,” he says. “Only our faith in God keeps us going.” We uphold to you, creator of all, our brothers and sisters of all faith communities and none.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. When I cry, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. Come, and listen to me.
We lament all destruction by floods, those heard of around the world, and those known only to people who live in the immediate area. We imagine the lives that would have been, that should have been, of so many children lost to natural disasters, lack of access to medical care, wars and other forms of violence and neglect.
We lament the loss of life of so many little girls living the best days they could imagine at Camp Mystic by the Guadalupe River, Texas, before those lives were taken by flash flooding earlier this week. We lament those lost in the floods in Ruidoso, New Mexico, USA, experiencing similar devastation today.
O Lord, hear the prayers of our sisters and brothers who live on the border between China and Nepal, where flash floods swept away the Nepal-China Friendship Bridge on Tuesday, July 8, and those on the Indian side of the Himalayas where monsoons have caused deadly floods.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. When I cry, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. Come, and listen to me.
We pray also for rescue teams and search crews all around the world, those who never know the moment they may be called into service. Besides the ones responding to flooding this week, others were fighting fires in Syria or outside Marseilles, the second largest city in France. No matter what part of the world we are in, we see those who spend days working through the aftermath of disasters, either because that is their vocation or because they so deeply believe in helping their neighbors that they can do nothing else in times like these. How hard their work! How weary they must be, relentlessly searching for survivors day after day,
We pray for the people who make their homes in places they love that we have never seen. We pray that they may find work, and good neighbors, and often wonderful beauty, and God-willing refuge and relief.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. When I cry, answer me.
O Lord, hear my prayer; O Lord, hear my prayer. Come, and listen to me.
O Lord, hear our prayers; O Lord hear our prayers, whether we are in Kerrville, Texas or New Mexico, USA, China, Nepal, France, Syria, Guatemala, India, Sudan, Yemen, Kenya, Australia, Ukraine, Russia or Gaza or any of a million other places. Come, and listen to our broken hearts. For you, our God, are our refuge and our strength, our very present help in trouble.
Remember us, O God, when we ourselves are weary of sadness upon sadness, and our souls refuse to be comforted. We will call to mind the promise of your presence. We remember again that “God, you are our refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble.” O Lord, good Creator of life, we give all those around the world that we have lost to death this past week back to you for your eternal care. We believe that you receive their souls and are even now keeping them in your perfect peace forevermore.
In the loving name of the Resurrected Christ we pray,
Amen.
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