 |
| Image by Stig Nygaard |
Praying for those affected by Cyclone Idai.
†
A Greeting
Be gracious to me, O God,
for I am in distress; my eye wastes away from grief,
my soul and body also.
(Psalm 31:8)
A Reading
When you pass through the waters,
I will be with you; and through the rivers,
they shall not overwhelm you,
because you are precious in my sight,
and honored, and I love you.
Do not fear, for I am with you;
I will bring your offspring from the east,
and from the west I will gather you.
(Isaiah 43:2;4a,5)
Music
Meditative Verse
Each one helps the other, saying to one another,
"Take courage!"
(Isaiah 41:6)
A Prayer
Compassionate God, source of all comfort,
We pray for the people whose lives have devastated
by rain and flood.
Bring them comfort, we pray.
Protect the vulnerable.
Strengthen the weak.
Keep at bay the spread of disease.
Have mercy on all those working to rescue the stranded
and to feed the hungry.
And help us to uphold them however we can.
For we ask it in Jesus name, Amen.
- adapted from a prayer offered on the website of christianaid.org.uk.
Verse for the Day
Let your steadfast love become my comfort
according to your promise to your servant.
Let your mercy come to me.
(Psalm 119:76-77)
†
 |
| Image by F Mira |
†
One of the enduring gifts of the prophets is that they meet us where we are, they hear our cries from age to age. Like the psalmist, the prophets groan on our behalf and in hope of restoration of a broken world. Lent is a time when we cry out to God as communities, or seek repentance and quiet restoration in our private prayer lives. This Lent we are seeing events of grief on the world stage that are capturing our compassion as well as our fear and anxiety. Those emotions are familiar to Isaiah and Jeremiah and the psalmist: to be a prophet is to hold the emotions of the world at heart. Cyclone Idai is being called one of the worst natural disasters in the history of the Southern Hemisphere. Affecting most of Mozambique, eastern regions of Zimbabwe and the southern tip of Malawi, it has impacted two and a half million people, left more than a thousand people dead in Mozambique and stranded four hundred thousand people in areas where land access has been broken or wiped out. Beira, Mozambique, home to a half million people, has been completely devastated. How do we respond? Prophets call truth to power and are unequivocating in their demands for justice. At the same time, prophets deliver the news of God’s promised restoration, of an end to injustice. It is a promise that requires us to participate, to pray and cry out on behalf of others, and move into action. International aid agencies are meeting the crisis from within their areas of specialty and could use our support. But we can also commit to paying attention long after the crisis has left our news cycles, to do what we can to help organizations and governments invest in disaster risk reduction and preparedness response. We can be the prophetic voice of change by learning what we can and supporting those who are on the front lines. What can you do today to help the steadfast love of God become a comfort to those in need?
†
LC† Journey for Justice is a project of
Lutherans Connect / Lutheran Campus Ministry Toronto,
supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Join our Facebook and find us on Instagram. Follow us @LutConnect
