A Prayer for Japan
Offered by Sharlande Sledge in morning worship,
Sunday, March 13, 2011
 

God of Love,

Stronger than the mountains,
deeper than the deepest fault-line
is your abiding love.

Though the land shivers with grief,
though familiar landmarks crumble and are washed into the sea,
though exhaustion and fear encompass your children,
still and forever you are with us;
still and forever you love us.

Through the path of rubble and dust and ashes,
through gaping wounds in towns
and numbness in hearts and flesh that faints,
through unanswerable questions,
in Japan and here within our own community,
and within ourselves,
still and forever you are with us;
still and forever you love us.

Though we are small creatures on this
ever-changing, ever-shifting planet we call home
and are forever trying to find our way
through life that contains loss
and loss that contains life,
we are blessed because
still and forever you are with us;
still and forever you love us.

God of Healing and Mercy,
this is a day to call upon your compassion,
to be in one another’s presence,
and in that presence to remind ourselves of the
enduring power of your love

. . . for we live in trust that we are loved, we are held,
and in that love and in that holding, we find hope.

Our help is the name of the Lord,
our refuge and our strength
and very present help in trouble.
On behalf of our fragile and broken world
and all our brothers and sisters in it
and on behalf of ourselves,
we call upon your Compassionate and Merciful name,
for we are assured that
still and forever you are with us,
still and forever you love us.

Amen.