PRAYERS
Advent Prayers for Overwhelmed Parents: Love
God of love, You came to us within a family. You know how hard family life can be. This season when we gather with relatives, Especially those we don’t see often, Be with us through our challenges and conflicts. We give You all the hard things we cannot carry alone: Grief and grudges. Disappointment and…
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Advent Prayers for Overwhelmed Parents: Joy
God of joy, This can be a heavy time of year for our mental health. For many of us, the world outside grows cold and dark. The sun sets early. The wind blows hard. Our minds and bodies suffer From the lack of light and shorter days. We were already struggling, but now everything feels…
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Advent Prayers for Overwhelmed Parents: Peace
God of peace, We’ve done it again. We’ve crammed our calendar full to bursting. We don’t know how we’ll get it all done. December is packed with Parties, plays, and performances, Christmas concerts and celebrations At school and church and work And everywhere in between— Shopping, planning, decorating, baking, Prepping, giving, buying, wrapping, Doing, doing,…
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Advent Prayers for Overwhelmed Parents: Hope
God of hope, Help us in this season of stress, This beautiful time of year that Can bring added burdens. Less money, more expenses, increased anxiety, Christmas coming right around the corner— Everything feels overwhelming right now. For rising costs and mounting bills. For Christmas lists and year-end deadlines. For groceries and gas and everything…
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For Those Who Make Things
May you bake, and be blessed. May you write, and unearth wonder. May you paint, and know pleasure. May you think on theories and theologies, and know deeply that this, too, counts. May you grow things, and glimpse growth within yourself. May you weld silver, and find that you are also being forged. May you…
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To The One Who Doesn’t Anymore
To the one who doesn’t journal, anymore. To the one who doesn’t play piano, anymore. To the one who doesn’t dance, write, shoot, build, garden, cook, bake, sketch, or sing anymore. You are not a failure, and the passion of your past was not fake. That art came to you and came from you for a season. The…
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Shadowlands
Lord, we invite you into the shadowlands of our hearts. Reveal to us the ways in which we continue to turn away from You. Release us from the shame of our betrayals and our perceived failures. Help us run toward Your mercy and repent of our sins. In these holy days, transform us and conform…
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A Prayer for Miscarriage
This prayer for miscarriage is featured in the book Pocket Prayers for Times of Trouble (Twenty-Third Publications, 2014). God of comfort, you who are mother and father of us all, hear my anguish at the loss of my child. My heart and body are broken, wracked with pain and grief. Let me bring you my cries and my confusion, my anger…
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Lord Have Mercy
Lord have mercy. It all feels so hopeless as we talk and talk and posture and debate and namecall and swipe and dehumanize for our own gain and nothing changes. No end in sight as children keep dying and families keep weeping and wailing and grieving… Lord have mercy on us all. Where are our…
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Lord, Help Me Choose Love
Lord, help me choose love. Help me choose love over the need to correct. Help me choose love over the need to educate. When I feel the need to prove my point, help me choose love. Help me choose love when I’m tired or impatient. When I’m angry, when I’m struggling with my mental health,…
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May Flowing Waters Quench The Parched Land
May flowing waters quench the parched land. May tiny tendrils push through the once hardened ground and blossom. May the grip of gloom be loosened to make way for joy. May the smallest spark of light shatter the suffocating darkness. May the tombs be empty and the gardens full. And in the groaning and straining…
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There Is Space For Your Story
There is space for your story. All the good, and all the gold. All the hard, and all the hurt. All the broken, and all the beautiful. There is room for the wreckage, room for the wounds and for figuring out: What went wrong, and who, and how, and what now? There is space for…
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