Monday Morning Offering - 58

Image: George Mendoza

Good morning, good God!

Just back from a family wedding, Lord:
three days of gathering, greeting,
meeting, feasting, hosting,
toasting the happy couple
and you, Lord,
the origin of all our love,
the source of every joy we know...

Weddings and funerals
and holidays and holy days
shine bright on our families, Lord,
and capture the candid truth
of who we are, who we wish we were,
who we might have been
and who we try to be...

Our family trees have many branches, Lord:
some limbs strong, fruitful,
leafy green and growing
and others scarred, broken,
apart from nurturing roots feeding rain
and warm rays...

This morning, Lord,
I offer you our families:
the strong, the weak,
the hurting, the thriving,
the intimate, the divided...

Root our families in the soil of faith,
drinking deeply the waters of life;
make us forgiving of family, Lord,
forgiving them as we would want to be forgiven;
and help us to put the needs of others
before our own...

Where love and mercy haven't healed
the hurts our families know,
give us wisdom, patience
and hope for healing yet to come...

Teach us not to wait for holidays
to gather us together, Lord,
and when special times do invite -
make us quick to plan to be there...

Open our families, Lord,
to those without a family to call their own,
remembering that in you
we are sisters and brothers to all...

Good God of Monday mornings
and all the special times
when families come together,
be with us this and every day...

Amen.

-ConcordPastor