Prayer

Strength and courage
for all who carry the weight of grief.

When bad news comes,
the illness or the death of someone we love,
something shifts; the world looks different.

We go through our daily routines
as if we are strangers in our own house;
the familiar landscape is forever altered.

Worst of all, the sky is blue; the sun seems so bright it is blinding.
Wouldn’t a rainy day be more fitting when every step forward is an effort?

Help us to learn the lessons that sadness can teach us,
for grief is a part of being human.
It is woven like a shiny metal thread into the fabric of our lives,
right next to love.

It is during times of deep sadness that we are most alive.
At times of loss, we touch the mystery that lurks in the shadows:
with death, we get to the heart of the matter.

As the wounds of loss begin to heal,
may we be strengthened by the memory of those we have loved.
They are not gone.
They live deep in our hearts; they travel with us.

For those in the midst of sorrow,
may you soon find stable ground.
May healing come with the passage of time, and
may sunlight soften to light your way.



Hi All. I was back in the pulpit at First Parish in Lincoln last Sunday leading the prayer time. Each week there is open time for silent and spoken prayers followed by the "pastoral prayer" which I wrote. The previous Sunday, many people shared aloud the hard things they were going through. I decided to write a prayer on grief. Here it is.