Melting Snow

Finally! The temperature is above freezing and the ice and snow are melting away. Water is coursing the street in front of our home like a series of small rivers overflowing their banks, while the bare concrete of the sidewalks peeks through to see the sun above it. Even if only for a day or two, the relief shows on faces of those I have seen today, as though the hope of their lives is somehow intricately tied to the emerging signs of Spring we see today.

So I pray today for those whose names I do not know, yet whose lives are cataclysmically affected by the freezing nature of bigotry, hatred, prejudice, and greed of our world. I pray for children whose bodies starve for food while their leaders bicker over power. I pray for lovers beaten by their lovers, yet who go back for more because they lack the strength, the hope to do anything differently. I pray for politicians whose primary interest is in the outcome of primaries, not the people they are called to serve. I pray for employers whose bottom line approach to business slices the bottom line out of their employee's livelihood. I pray for people whose skin color has made them the target of fear, hatred, and distrust, when all they were born into the world to do, all they ever hope to accomplish, is to live the life God created them to live. I pray for the people whose sexual orientation has made them the object of scorn, judgement, and loathing, and pray that they are better able to live as God's kingdom people than those who ridicule them in the name of God. I pray for peace in the lands whose life has known only warring, and I pray for justice in the lands whose life has known only peace. I pray for those who mourn and for those who sit with them, that the comfort they seek be the assurance they receive. I pray for those who are the victims - and for those who are the victimizers, for those who are the oppressed - and for those who are the oppressors, for surely, at one time or another, everyone is one or the other, and all stand in the need of God's grace and mercy.

I pray for warm days in the midst of Winter's chill, if for no other reason than to remind me to pray in thankfulness to the One from Whom all blessings come. In so praying, may we remember those less fortunate, those stuck under the Winter's ice praying for the Sun to melt their pain away. Come, Lord Jesus, be Thou our Guest.

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don