You Ordained for Us
Dear heavenly Father, we thank you for Your abundant gifts of peace, light, love, hope, and grace.
They are the foundations of all who truly love You.
Just as the pure, white snow adorns our lawns, Your gifts have nourished the earth for the spring to come.
Although peace is fleeting around the world, we ask You to place peace in the hearts and minds of those who are at war.
We ask that You hold our men and women in Your hands who are fighting and give them courage to pursue peace.
Shine Your light, Lord, on the darkened places of our world, where men’s hearts have been blinded by hatred and violent manipulations of citizens.
Help Americans to retrieve our honor, integrity, and truth amid the political turmoil in our country, to stand tall on the hill of liberty that You gave us.
We know that Your plans for us were born in our mother’s wombs so that we, too, might realize the incredible love You gave our mothers and fathers.
Grant our children a sure path to righteousness and help them to come to You when their hearts and minds are filled with questions that need honest truths.
Help us, dear Father, to give to the world more love than we receive and to color it pure as the newly-fallen snow.
For those who are suffering loneliness, homelessness, and debilitating medical issues, we ask that Your hope fills their bodies and souls with spiritual healing and graceful hope.
We ask that You enter the souls of our prison system inmates and care for the immigrants who are being held in ICE facilities.
Shine Your hopeful face on their harsh lives and give them rest.
The nations of the world, Lord, are struggling with graceful forgiveness, even as we see Christ’s blood flowing from His sides.
Help us to understand that You gave Your Son so that we might be forgiven our sins.
In the love, hope, and grace of the pure, white snow, we can forgive others and help to create a better world where life is sacred.
In the peace and light of the of Your Eternal love, create in us the beauty of loving relationships, the truth of courageous decisions, and the strength to walk with You, even as we might stumble from time to time.
All these things we ask in Your name and pray that people will come to You with their hearts, minds, bodies, and souls opened to Your love and caring.
Whatever else You ordain for us, we are in deed grateful for.
A-men.
Anna Hartt
