As we are in appointment-making season, Bishop Shelton has encouraged all of us to pray for the Cabinet, clergy and their families, and congregations. We will be sharing prayers over the next few weeks and encourage you to share them with your church.
Read the next prayer in the series written by Rev. Cameron Merrill.
Endings scare us, Living God.
We know that all things must, at some point, come to an end, but we’ve become so skilled at living as if that were not true.
Some of our endings we expect; others come as a total surprise.
Either way, we confess that we are too easily convinced that we aren’t ready for such an ending—
surely there is still more we could do, that we should do, that only we can do.
Lord, in your mercy: remind us again that we are not you.
When an ending is in sight, we are prone to dwell on the past.
Past mistakes become more significant, while past accomplishments grow dim.
In grief, we will cling tightly to both as a way to control our present moment.
Lord, in your mercy: forgive us for our pasts.
In our anticipations, Lord, we will let go too soon.
We will create distances to protect ourselves, to make the goodbyes seem easier, to protect our hearts and nurture our hurts.
And in creating distance, we believe we can control what’s to come.
Lord, in your mercy: bring us into your great future.
We are grateful for the time we have had together:
good times and bad,
time to share each other’s sorrows and joys,
successes and failures.
We can give thanks knowing that even in our grief now, much has been added to our lives
that makes room for all that is yet to come.
And so, Living God, we offer you our regrets,
our sadness,
our remorse,
our angers and our worries—
our full selves before you,
trusting that you can receive all that we are
and make us more than we could hope to be,
in your future that is always bigger than our past.
Through Christ our Lord,
In the strength of your Holy Spirit, we pray. Amen.
Image: Unsplash / Eyasu Etsub