Listen, daughter, and pay careful attention:
Forget your people and your father’s house.
Let the king be enthralled by your beauty;
honor him, for he is your lord.
Psalm 45:10-11
We pray today for renewal of our young people and their memories of the past. Help the children in our mission to heal from trauma by remembering only Your love for them. Please prove to them that you come to make Your blessings flow as far as the curse is found. Amen.
We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.
2 Corinthians 1:8-9
God, as much as we like to say that you don’t give us anything we can’t handle, it feels like you do that all the time. In fact, what we know is that you don’t give us anything you can’t handle. We pray that you will remind Mia of that, especially as the days get shorter and busier with the coming of Christmas. On nights when she gets almost no sleep, give her your strength. On days when she doesn’t know what to do, give her your wisdom. You are the one who can handle anything, and we’d best not forget it. Amen.
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.
Psalm 95:2
I will give thanks to the Lord for you are good.
I will give thanks to the Lord for you are merciful.
I will give thanks to the Lord for you are good.
You have been good all of my days, and I will give you praise.
They will neither hunger nor thirst, nor will the desert heat or the sun beat down on them. He who has compassion on them will guide them and lead them beside springs of water.
Isaiah 49:10
God we pray for the many people affected by scorching heat. If there is any way for us to help them, we ask for you to show us and remind us. Thank you for sunshine, and for the opportunity to love each other by caring for each other’s needs. Amen.
Dear friend, I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well.
3 John 1:2
Lord we ask for mercy on Mia’s health as she struggles with the fracture in her inner ear. Give her the capacity to hear well and to continue serving you with her body. Give any doctors who examine her wisdom in how or if to proceed with any treatment. And if at all possible, we ask for you to heal her completely. Amen.
…they did not believe in God
or trust in his deliverance.
Yet he gave a command to the skies above
and opened the doors of the heavens;
he rained down manna for the people to eat,
he gave them the grain of heaven.
Human beings ate the bread of angels;
he sent them all the food they could eat.
He let loose the east wind from the heavens
and by his power made the south wind blow.
Psalm 78:22-26
God, we so often forget your provision. Teach us to trust you for absolutely everything we need. Help us to pray, even when we’d rather stay ungrateful. Amen.
But you, God, see the trouble of the afflicted;
you consider their grief and take it in hand.
The victims commit themselves to you;
you are the helper of the fatherless.
Psalm 10:14
Thank you for fathers who love you and who give sacrificially for their children’s well-being. We pray for the many children who do not have fathers or who do not know paternal love. Please comfort them and provide them with people who reflect your fatherly care. We ask this for the children at Mia’s Children and for other young people like them around the world. Amen.
Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the LORD and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.
Proverbs 3:7-8
Even when it feels like the world makes no sense, when we are overwhelmed by events we cannot control and wrongs we can’t fix, we are reminded that you give wisdom, that you are wisdom. We are so unknowing and yet, through you, we can have the wisdom of the wisest king. Teach us to trust you for the wisdom we need to live in this world. Amen.
There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.
John 15:13 (NLT)
Lord we take time today to remember what it means to sacrifice one’s entire life. May we learn to be more grateful for the many men and women who have done so for us, and may this Memorial Day bring us to a deeper understanding of how much you love us. Amen.
Who provides food for the raven
when its young cry out to God
and wander about for lack of food?
Job 38:41
We pray this week for the Romanian economy, which every day causes more and more people to struggle. Please give world leaders and Romanian politicians wisdom moving forward and a deepened desire see their country healed from financial turmoil. Amen.