Pause for Prayer: FRIDAY 11/20

Just a little more than a week left in November, the month of All Souls, a special time to remember and pray for those who have gone before us... Let's not forget to pray for those who were often forgotten... 

I pray today for those who died
whose story was a mystery, 

    a puzzlement, a problem
for their families and their friends, 

their colleagues and their neighbors 
- but not for you, O Lord, 

    who understood and loved them...

I pray for the marginalized and unappreciated: 

    those left out of groups and games,     

    estranged from friendship circles,

        forgotten, overlooked

            just when it counted most;
    those often left behind,

        without a thought, ignored,
    those who often stood alone,

        so very much alone...

 
I pray for those 

    who suffered the pain and ache,
        of having no one to lean on,

    no one to sit with and talk to,
        no one there to share a joy,
            a sorrow, a hope, a loss, a dream
                or just a quiet moment...

I pray for those
    whose loneliness shut them out,
whose isolation hid them 

    from those who sought them out
        to speak and to be with them

- but all to no avail -
    so much had their solitude
        shaped their hidden life...

 

Lord, I pray for those who knew, like you, 
    what it means to be forgotten,
        deserted and abandoned,
    left behind,
        left to surrender to love unseen, 

    love whose arms reached out to save,

        to catch, to hold in peace
            the lonely and forgotten
    in that embrace that every soul
        desires without end...

I pray for these forgotten ones
    that now, at last, they rest in joy, 

embraced and held forever
    in your loving arms, O Lord,
made one with you 

    and all you've gathered in to share

        your never-ending peace...

Amen.

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