Pastoral Prayer: Help Us Float

You, God, are vast.  More expansive than we know, more creative, more connected.  You are larger than anything we can imagine.  Yet you become present and show your grace through the smallest stories.  

You demonstrate care through the tenderness of a small boat, lovingly made, to protect just one child.  That one child, Moses, represents the hope that these individual lives are worthwhile.  Each person has meaning.  That the effort to protect one life is not wasted.

Help us remember the value of a life.

Forgive us for our callousness, for when we justify any death. 

For preventable deaths, for those killed by our own glorification of violence as a self-protective response, we ask for forgiveness. 

For preventable deaths, for those killed by our own need to continue on with life as usual, we ask for forgiveness.

You show us a way through water to redemption.  

Yet you do not promise us the path through waters will be easy.

So we hold together with you today the grief we carry.  We think of the conversations we miss, the coffee hours and services and concerts and eye contact we have not been able to have.  We grieve those we know who have died.  We grieve those we do not know that have died, icons and ordinary alike.  We carry guilt for adjusting and being able to simply carry on, but ache so desperately for just one normal day.  

These waters are deep, Spirit, but you are with us.

Lighten us and the burdens we carry.  Help us share among one another.  Let us build boats, baskets, little arks, to help us float when the waters rise.  

Hear the prayers we offer today, a collection of stories. 

We trust in your power and your judgment. We trust in your love.  Tell our stories as one, collected and pressed together in You.

Amen.