a prayer...

God, this world--our country--is a mess. We look around and can't help but see the bad.

• Hate-filled words are thrown out. I wish I could say it is done without thought, but it isn't. Those words, filled with venom, are spit out with the sole purpose of hurting people, creating wounds that cut all the way to the heart.
• Natural disasters wipe out years of hard work, leaving people homeless--but more devastatingly, hopeless.
• Wicked men kill innocents, and while so many lives are snuffed out in the blink of an eye, countless other lives are turned inside-out and upside down.
• Right is called wrong, and people try to justify evil.

Things are falling apart all around us. Dreams are shattered, families are broken, hopes are lost...the future seems to be fading right before our eyes.

Father, please pull us--Your children--close to You. Let us feel Your arms around us so that we are reminded of You in the middle of the mess.

• Let us see Your strength, even as we're reminded of our own weakness.
• Remind us that You are always the same, constant and steady despite the chaos.
• Show us Your love for us, even when all we hear is hate.
• Give us Your peace in the midst of disaster and loss.
• Help us to remember that this world--this life--is temporary, and that You wait to welcome us home.

God, let Your love fill us and pour out of our broken places to spill over to those around us. Make us beacons of Your light to a world that seems to only be getting darker. Give us the courage to be different--so much so that people can't help but notice. Let us be reflections of You in a world that is searching for answers to questions they don't even know how to ask. God, our of our brokenness, help us to heal the broken parts around us.