13 November 2024 – Pause & Pray

Every Wednesday we invite you to Pause & Pray with us. Today’s reflection is curated by Adrian Mendoza.

Image: St. Mary Lake & going to the Sun Mountain, taken in Nov 2023 from our trip in Montana.

Pray:

Dear God, the world seems so dark and foreboding.

Where are the signs of hope? What are you calling us to do?

Wars, uprisings, displacements, hunger, poverty, and disease continue to claim victims by the millions around the world each year. Our ears do not want to hear their stories and our eyes do not want to see their plight because the suffering and destruction is so massive and cruel. In our hearts and minds there is a desire to help somehow, but the crisis seem so overwhelming that we shake our heads in dismay and we wonder what the point is for us even to attempt to be witnesses for healing and hope in this hellish morass. We beg with the songwriter to open our eyes that we may see glimpses of truth you have for us.

Help us to follow the path of Jesus, the Suffering Servant. Give us courage to be willing to walk the path of depression and pain with victims of injustice here at home and abroad. Help us seek ways to light candles of hope, however small, through our words, deeds, and prayers, to encourage our siblings to hold onto faith in spite of the pain and suffering they face.

Help those of us who are among the fortunate ones, who have enough to eat, good health, and who live in relative peace, to open our heart to learn from those living lives of grace and forgiveness in the horrid circumstances which surround them. O God, help us to light one candle rather than to curse the darkness.

We pray this in the name of Jesus, who knows what being a light in this world is about.

– adapted from Larry Kehler, Mennonite Central Committee