A Prayer

I recently wrote this prayer for a friend who is in a tough situation. Just as I pray it for him, I pray it for everyone in the 423 Family.

Hopefully, it is something you can take to heart.

Dear Lord,

I pray we would be able to live this life with a little less weight on our chests. Teach us and help us understand You are always on the other side of the yolk, always pulling, always helping, always supporting.

Please add some more levity to our lives, Lord, so we can laugh more often and cry more freely with friends and family on both arms. Care for your servants, Lord. Lay us down, give us rest. Show us the fruit of Your work in us and the fruit of Your work in our community.

We need encouragement, Lord. Open our eyes to the good You have done and are doing. Bolster our hearts, Lord. Fortify them against the innumerable legions of hell. Those forces that would knock us down—grind them into the dust, Lord. Step on their heads until they crack. Burn away the chaff, scorching their evil ways with a terrible fire.

Praise to you, Lord. You care for the hungry, broken, and sick. You build up Your sons and daughters, elevating us to a place far above those forces that would scoff, spit, and torment us. How low they writhe on the ground, a thin, pale shadow to be burned away in an instant by one glance of Your shining face.

Praise you, Lord. You give all that is needed and more. You pour until our cups run over. I pray you would teach us to use the excess well, Lord. And remind us our own cups must be filled in order for us to pour into others.

Thank you for this journey, Lord. Thank you for the beauty of this life. We have learned to love some incredibly beautiful people that we would not have come to love any other way. You have given us more family, Lord. Something so invaluable we cannot express its worth, its blessing, its endless beauty. Family. You have reclaimed it and made it bigger than we ever could have dreamed, more beautiful in its diversity than we ever could have hoped.

Thank you, Lord. Thank you a million times over. You are blessed, Lord. You are on high. You are the greatest, Lord. You are more than could ever be said, sung, written, or wept. Such infinity is so beyond comprehension, yet You somehow find a way to touch us with it. We do not understand. Still, we are blessed.

Amen.

Contributor: Jordan N.