Prayer for 12.13.20 adapted from Psalm 126

God, When you brought back the captives from exile, they were like those who dream. Their mouths were filled with laughter and their tongues with joyful shouting;

They said to all the surrounding nations, “The Lord has done great things for us.” Just like them, O God, we know that you have also done great things for us; we are joyful.

Lord, this year we have experienced a different type of devastation, while it has not destroyed our walls, our reservoirs, or even our temples, it has decimated all that we called normal.

O, Lord, the attacks on us have left us with different scars, different trauma.  The attacks have not come from uniformed clad warriors but our attackers have been unseen, but the destruction is still read and present.

God, they have devastated our economy, our civility, our students, our leaders, they have inflicted illness, unrest, in the midst we have experienced fires and floods. They have spread death to every seen and unseen place.

Father, we have been been forced to take unknown paths and uncomfortable steps.  We have been faced with a choice of holding to an undoable past or allowing your Sprit to take us down unfamiliar roads preparing us to release our grip on the attitudes, traditions and practices of the past.

Lord, we know that you use seasons such as this for your work of redemption which allows us to look forward to your gift of restoration.  God, we pray that you would continue to open our minds to see bigger than our past narrow paths and ways, and instead to the vast and wide open fields to which you call us.

Father, we hold to your promise that those who sow in tears shall harvest with joyful shouting. We know that as we go here and there weeping, we shall soon be carrying your bag of seed and we will, indeed, come again with a shout of joy, bringing your sheaves with us.

Amen.