“What Are You Doing?” with Rev. Racquel Gill

[gentle music] And today, as I offer up this prayer on our behalf, I invite God's tender mercies to carry the words, um, and the very ways in which I invite God's tender mercies to carry our prayers, um, that God would meet us with a gentleness in the midst of a world that sometimes is as cruel as pig iron.

And yet we know that this God who loves us, this God who tends to our lives, is a God who is a good steward of our lives, even when the world is not.

Which means that we can trust God with our tears and also with our joys.

And so let us pray.

God of Nolan Wells, God of Tajah Fortune, God of Julianna Nzita, God of Daniel Irving, God of Johan Guerrero, God of Lorenzo Araujo, God of Chloe McDonnell, God of Cohen Wiley, God of all who mourn, God of all who weep, God of all who are afraid, God of all that we hold dear in our hearts, we know that you hold these lives dear to you.

And we praise you, O God, because in this lifetime, we move on this earth knowing that we bear your image.

And even those names that we have spoken this morning, also too, Lord.

You are a God who does not forget, so we choose to be a community that remembers that all of these lives, sacred, holy, good, those of your creating.

So, God, we also trust that these lives that you hold dear, our lives you hold dear as well, that you care about our situations and our circumstances.

You care about our aches and our pain.

You care about our heartbreak and our frustrations.

You care about our broken dreams and our hearts that need mending.

You care about the places where we feel we do not have enough provision.

You care about our strained relationships.

O God, we believe that you care about us.

So we place our lives in your hands, believing that you'll be a caretaker, that you'll be a comforter, that you'll be a peace giver, that you will be the one who will wipe away every single tear from our eyes and will whisper to us in the quiet that joy will indeed come for us in the morning.

Take our lives, O God, precious in your sight, and hold them near.

And for all those whose lives were not honored, for all those whose lives are like commodities in this world, for all those whose lives live under the threat of danger, O God, who is a mountain mover and light in the darkness, would you move mightily this day.

You are a God who does not forget, so we will be a church that remembers.

And now, Lord, as we keep our ears and our hearts open to hear the word read and also proclaimed, we ask, God, that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon Reverend Raquel.

That through her words and through your word through her, we might hear a word this day that would cause us to live.

Rest gently upon her.

Rest gently upon us, that all the space between us would be holy ground.

And God, would you speak in such a way that we, your children, can hear you.

We pray all of this in the strong name of your Son, Jesus Christ.