Each week during our service, Jim Lowe offers up a prayer from the heart.  This week’s prayer is posted below.  Jimmy, who is a firefighter and EMT, reminds us to keep all of our first responders in prayer as they do not have the option of staying safe at home.

…be well…david

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Heavenly Father,                                                            Sunday, March 22, 2020

I find myself in a place I never thought I’d be. For my whole life people have told me that I believe in you even though I’ve never seen you. And that I have always believed that prayer would carry us through. And now, now they tell me that I can’t stand next to my fellow man and pray as I did before, I can’t stand in the house of worship or the house of God or the house of a higher power and ask for help. That we can’t gather in the street to ask for your forgiveness. Because it’s only our arrogance that put us in the situation that we are in now.

I was given an opportunity to stand before your children and be your voice for some time now. In reality all I am is a vessel because other than the love I have for you in my heart, I really have no words of my own. I generally start the conversation but by the time I’m two or three sentences in, the Holy Spirit has definitely taken over. At some point this expanded beyond just standing in the front of Church, to now, every time I am faced with a situation where someone needs to find some kind words to help them through life, those words come into my heart. I find myself engaged with people in conversation without even knowing exactly what their problem is but always seem to have the right words to help them out. So Heavenly Father I ask you now to help us.

Lord, no matter what the outside appearance was that I would give people, at some point they would realize that I am different inside. And I have come to a point where just saying this to myself is not enough.  So Heavenly Father, I wish to beg for your forgiveness for our arrogance. At this time when we would normally celebrate your Son rising from the dead to forgive all sins, it’s ironic that I’m asking you for exactly the same thing. At some point the world is going to have to realize that we’re all stuck on this a marble together. And obviously, no matter what happens on one side of the world, it’s going to end up on the other side. Good, bad, or indifferent, this virus is not discriminatory.

When this thing is finally over Lord, you would have unfortunately taken more of your children home to you. Look Into My Heart Lord, those people that I have in my life wherever they be…family, or friends, or co-workers, or brothers and sisters in the many fine departments I’ve worked with, they all have one thing in common. They are the people that take care of people at their worst. They are devoted to what they do, and they deserve be taken care of, to be held in your hand and protected, so they might be able to protect your children…amen   (jpl)