Sunday, May 13, 2001
Offered by Donna Gray, Interim Associate Pastor for Children and Family Ministry

Almighty God, in whom we live and move and have our being, we praise you. You have made us to be homegrown. You have planted us in families. You have sheltered us under parents or guardians. You have nurtured us along the way. Strong mother God, warm father God, like a good gardener you have cared for our growth. We thank you for the pattern of family life. All experience is here, from the greeting of birth to death’s good-bye, and here we learn that we belong and that we can love. Enable us to make our homes places where the dynamics of love and forgiveness are daily at work. Grant us the grace of patience when tempers are tried. Give us the grace to forgive when we feel offended. Help us to add small miracles of love and laughter in our homes.

We thank you for redeeming our time, for sanctifying the everyday events of life with your presence.

Where there is joy, you are there to add depth and meaning to our celebration.

Where there is sorrow, you are present to sustain and comfort.

Where there is pain, we see the face of your Son upon the cross, assuring us that even in suffering we have enduring fellowship with you.

Where there is hopelessness and despair, you are present to reveal, in your time, new possibilities.

Send your Spirit with us as we go forth from your house, so that in our daily work, in our struggle with problems, in our efforts to heal, we will find wholeness and completeness in you.

Hear us as we pray Our Father . . .

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church