A Concord Pastor Comments: NIGHT PRAYER: Wednesday 9/24

Lord,

we pray to you as if we're old friends

(and, indeed, we are)

and yet, so much of who you are

and how you move

and what you do

- is a mystery to us...

We do not know just how or when

your healing hand will touch us,

your Spirit's grace will calm us,

your peace will fill and free us...

Still, we trust you're always by our side,

that you hear our very prayer,

that you know and bear in your own heart

each ache and hurt that heavy weighs on ours...

We cannot know just when you'll move

or how you'll answer prayer

so until then, be with us, Lord,

and keep us in your love...

Protect us, Lord, while we like awake

and watch over us when we sleep

that awake, we might keep watch for you

and asleep, rest in your peace...

Amen.

We Cannot Measure How You Heal by John Bell

We cannot measure how you heal
or answer every sufferer’s prayer,
yet we believe your grace responds
where faith and doubt unite to care.
Your hands, though bloodied on the cross
survive to hold and heal and warn,
to carry all through death to life
and cradle children yet unborn.

The pain that will not go away,
the guilt that clings from things long past,
the fear of what the future holds
are present as if meant to last.
But present too is love which tends
the hurt we never hoped to find,
the private agonies inside
the memories that haunt the mind.

So some have come who need your help,
and some have come to make amends,
as hands which shaped and saved the world
are present in the touch of friends.
Lord, let your Spirit meet us here
to mend the body, mind and soul,
to disentangle peace from pain
and make your broken people whole.