Rambling prayer

God of All Creation,

Today I thank you for everyday things like the breath you put in our lungs, like the sunshine, like the food and water that are generally so readily available. I thank you that you give us a purpose, a future, and hope. I thank you for healthy and growing children who are doing “all the things” as they prepare to launch into adulthood. And I pray for parents who grieve for children who will never see adulthood. I pray for parents, spouses, children, and other loved ones of people deployed to dangerous places. I pray for safety for those on deployment and for a great sense of peace and your presence on their loved ones far away. I pray for men and women in uniform locally who every day see crime, tragedy, hardship, strife, despair, and so many other draining things. I pray your angels would camp around them to keep them safe from physical harm, would give them wisdom and discernment as they make challenging and sudden choices, and that you would especially protect them from the emotional and spiritual weight that comes from seeing such hard things so often. I pray for children and teens who have been so traumatized by the past three years of Covid Chaos. I pray you would be very present to them, especially through healthy, loving, stable, and encouraging adults in their lives. Miraculously make up for any health deficits, learning deficits, or other battles they have fought. Grant them healing from the trauma of these important years in their young lives and bring them close to your heart of love so they know your grace, mercy, healing, and peace. I pray you will be very a very present help for those who care for aging parents or relatives. Give them the financial, mental, emotional, and relational support they need to provide loving and responsible care for those who have cared for them in past years. I pray against all diseases that rob us of the abundant life you came to give us. From cancer to heart disease to diabetes to ALS to mental illness to depression and despair – to so many other things – heal us, Lord Jesus; heal us, we pray. We know the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, and we pray in the name of Jesus that you would even today break the power of the wicked in this world. Break the power held over your people’s finances, economies, governments, educational systems, medical systems, relationships, physical bodies, Churches, and our hope. God, we need you to move mightily and in power in this day when the darkness seems to be overwhelming the Light. Yet, we know you are our stronghold, our fortress, our defense, the One in whom we trust. Give us peaceful hearts, even when the world seems filled with chaos. Give us discerning spirits so we can hear your voice carefully and clearly. Give us courage to face these days and hours. Give us wisdom to know what to do when and to and with whom. Give us hearts of love for those around us so we can share the Good News of Jesus Christ in verbal, prayerful, and tangible ways. Pour out your hope, healing, wisdom, peace, provision, blessing, and favor upon your people we pray in Jesus’s name. AMEN.