Parents Prayers

Prayers of My Parents Written on Index Cards

Community

Places that matter in our community

Our Father, we give our thanks for the warmth and beauty of this day – for this place and its importance in our community. Sustain, support and comfort those in need of your Grace this hour. Amen

Not sure, but I would guess this was a prayer given in the Bowling Green Country Club, where the Exchange Club used to meet. It was also where we held Mom and Dad’s 50th wedding anniversary party. It was also where we went for dinner when we returned home to visit with our children.

It was a simple, friendly casual “country club,” not what you might first assume. It was important to the community. It was important to my family.

What places would I compare that to now? Do I have a comparably important place to my family?

The one place I think of would be the far right side of the bleachers, where the high school band sits.

Where else have we congregated?

Heavily Edited

3/27/01 Our Father, hear again our thanks for this day – cause us to use it wisely and to share our gifts with others.

Make stronger our faith, in Thee and our trust of others – remind us to forgive and forget and to be about our objective of serving this community.

Amen

Like most change we wonder “why?” Why now? Why this? Why that?

Why this word?

I’m left to wonder. But I love that even my father polished his words, few that they were.

So today I start with a blank page of what may befall.

What came to me, while doing the pour over coffee ritual is what if the surface Facebook could be a Soul book and we could really go deep with each other.

I read desperate things and feel at a loss to return in kind. How do we learn to do that? With our neighbor or with others close to us, let alone people we don’t know directly.

That is serving our community at their deepest need.

Polishing takes roughing up or tumbling…

Sharing Gifts

3/16/18 Our heavenly Father, we come again asking for your blessing on this fellowship. Remind us of who we are and the needs of this community. Help us to see beyond the ‘weather’ of today – to be grateful for Life itself – to be less anxious about what ‘might happen’ and to share our gifts with others. Amen

I am not a gifted writer, but I can share this gift, the gift of my parents prayers left in a plastic recipe box. I can share the gift of our family’s memories and motivations. I can share our quirky gift of seeing things differently, a trait my youngest, also exhibits.

Today that took the form of light. I don’t understand the warm fuzzy comments to a sad story (on social media) of, “I send light and hope.

WTH? How do you “send light”?

If I have a problem, I am willing to share on social media, I obviously need my heavenly Father to intervene. He is the light. He helps me see beyond my dark clouds.

So maybe your gifts take other forms. No problem. They still can be shared, in person, not just “sent.”

Faith in Your Intervention

3/1/05 Our Heavenly Father, we come again chilled by yet another storm – by headlines depicting death and violence – by the anxieties of what might happen. Help us to free ourselves of stress – to pursue purposeful and responsible actions and to have Faith in your intervention. Amen

Today’s March 1 sounds like this weather report of Dad’s. That hasn’t changed. Nor have we escaped death and violence in the headlines. In fact now it is worse, as we don’t just read it at our kitchen table in the morning paper with our coffee, we carry it around with us and are caught up on the latest thanks to the internet.

The anxieties of what may happen indeed are nurtured in fertile soil. But here’s the thing, we can be free of this stress, but I am not sure I agree with Dad’s belief we can free ourselves.

Does God intervene? Many despair and say, “No.” Not all interventions look like Superman stopping a train (yes, I recall watching black and white reruns at Beverly? YMCA eating pizza while Dad worked some event). Some intervention, love that is singular, ongoing…is in the form of people in our lives that help mitigate our pain and stress.

Help me to have faith in Your Intervention and consequently, have faith in you, put here in my life for a reason.

Thanks!

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