May 14, 2023

Offered by Nanette Sawyer, Associate Pastor

Holy God of all creation, on this Mother’s Day we give you thanks that each of our own mothers brought us into this world.

We thank you for the mothering that women have done throughout time, whether as birth mothers or adoptive mothers or foster mothers or simply as women who have given strong love and nurturing and healing love to those hungry for a mother’s devoted love.

Bless all women on this day, we pray, and bless all parents whose work of raising adults from children is a formidable and worthy task.

Be with all families today, those into which we were born and those that we have chosen and built around us. Let families be places of affirmation and support, encouragement and growth, as we humans continue to learn how to be community, how to be family, how to be church. Guide us through forgiveness and perseverance, and bring us to joy with each other.

We pray for all those who grieve. We have lost so much in the last years. Help us to find you, God of grace, in the midst of our sorrow. We grieve the loss of more than 6,927,378 lives to the global pandemic. Be with those who continue to struggle with long COVID, and help us all as we continue to adapt to our world in new ways.

Strengthen those who struggle with illnesses of any kind. Be with the doctors and nurses and other health-care providers seeking to provide healing. Be a force of love and hope to the families and friends of those working to heal from cancer or learning to live with new limitations.

We pray for those who struggle with addictions of any kind. May they get the help and support that they need to heal.

We pray for our world, for all leaders and peoples and nations. Give us the courage to confront injustice and violence, and the wisdom of how to do so. Shield those who are in harm’s way. Overcome war with peace.

Look into our own hearts and remove any greed or fear that you find there. Let us be people of peace, people who are strong in conviction and commitment to justice and love.

You, Holy One, are the resurrected God, you who bring life out of death and hope out from despair. Hear the cries of your people. Receive the prayers of our lips and of our hearts.

And hear us pray as Jesus taught us, saying, Our Father …

Prayer © Fourth Presbyterian Church