Prayer Together 08.30.20

God, we are thankful that you know our name

Lord, we are grateful, that you know our name better than we know it ourself

Father, we are amazed that our name never leaves your mind.

God, you know the names Aubrey Dameron, Ida Beard, Emily Morgan, Selena Not Afraid, Aubrey Dameron, Savanna Greywind, Angela McConnell, and the countless of other native American women and girls who remain missing or have been murdered. Father, while our system has dismissed, or forgotten, far more of these names than it has remembered, we know that you do not forget, nor will you ever forget these names.

Lord, long before we ever heard, or paid attention to, these, you already knew the names of Ahmaud Arbery, Michael Brown, Terence Crutcher, Eric Garner, Oscar Grant, Freddie Gray, Botham Jean, Atatiana Jefferson, Bettie Jones, Trayvon Martin, Laquan McDonald, Tamir Rice, Breonna Taylor, Dominique White. We fail your call to us as we forget our fellow humans beings created by you, these who have died because of color – senselessly and unjustly killed. After our outrage, or sympathy, dissipates and our entitled excuses do their job of removing our guilt and refocusing the blame on these victims, we forget these names.  You, O God, never forget these you lovingly created; these you know by name, and even more by heart. You share in the tears of those that loved them and, are now, facing an earthly eternity of grief in their absence.

Father, we ignore the daily barrage of numbers, each representing other loved humans created by you. We hear numbers like the 43,000 persons locked up in across the State of Oklahoma; or the numbers, 1,310 out of every 100,000, numbers statisically bypassing the names that you know of those in our state locked up and imprisoned, numbers surpass the numbers in all other states as well as the numbers in all other NATO nations.  We seldom know these names, or remember these numbers.

God, you know the names of each of the 16,289 students in the Norman Public Schools, as well as the names of each of the 1,962 employees that make or public school system.  You know the name of each of the 22,152 University of Oklahoma students that have recently returned to our city.

Lord, you know the names of each of the 34 deaths in our city in the past six months due to the Covid 19 illness, you know the name of everyone of the 149 currently active Covid cases in our city, you know the name of every one of the 1,522  city residents the have fully recovered from covid.  God, you know the names of those scientists currently working feverishly on a vaccine for the virus, you also know the names of those who have sought to speak false information and outright lies into the minds of our fellow American citizens.

God, we are thankful that you knew the names of every inhabitant in Ninevah crying out for any kind of deliverance, and you knew the name of Noah, Abraham and Sarah, of Isaac and Rebecca, of Jacob, Leah, and Rachel, of the sons of Jacob, including Joseph, and of Shiphrah, Puah, Jochebed, Miriam, and of Bithiah.

God we are thankful that you have told us your name. Father, we are thankful that you know our name.

Amen.