Eternal God, our Creator, we call upon You as our Father. We are in great need. For Jesus’ sake, embrace us with assurances of Your love. Give us calm that this pandemic too will pass. Most High, dwelling in light inaccessible but revealing light in our darkness, look down upon us as we are being tested. Receive both our intercession and the groanings of Your Spirit for us in our weakness.
Bestow mercies upon the reopening of our nation’s schools. However they’re opening, the labors of teachers, administrators, and parents are in vain without Your enabling mercies. Give administrators the courage to set aside their personal preferences, to take to heart the advice of experts, to be regular and persuasive in their communications, and to be at peace with the fallibility of their decisions. Give teachers a deep feeling of calm and hope that they will convey to their students. Keep teachers safe from contagion and persuasive about extraordinary health measures to their not-yet-disciplined, not yet mature students.
Parents, traditional two-parent homes, and single parents too, carry heavy concerns. You have placed them as Your representatives in the rearing of Your children, for these indeed are Your children, O Creator, our Father. As parents fret over their children’s and their own health, with their employment or lack thereof, with meeting demands greater than their resource, enlighten them hope and the support of Your everlasting arms.
Give our youth rock-solid confidence that they are loved, come what may, loved by You their eternal Father and loved by their parents. Keep them safe, safe themselves, safe from spreading. And may they know that they are loved by our congregation. Ah, how we forget our Savior’s words as we go about the “adult business” of the church. “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them for to such belongs the kingdom of God.” May we all play our part to lead these children in the footsteps of Jesus who “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom.”
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. ‘The Lord is my portion,’ says my soul, ‘therefore I will hope in him.’ The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul who seeks him.” Amen!
Passages alluded to or quoted: Job 38:4; 1 Peter 1:17; Exodus 33:20; 2 Timothy 1:10; Psalm 11:4; Romans 8:26; Psalm 127:1; Deuteronomy 33:27; Psalm 27:1; Mark 10:14; Luke 2:40; Lamentations 3:22-25.
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