Hear us now O Great Redeemer, and “clothe us in your compassion, kindness, humility and patience.” (Collossians 3:12), “Turn away our eyes from our own vanity and revive us in your ways” (Psalm 119:37).

We’re just ordinary people, flawed and prone to sin, but You see us as no one else does. You understand our potential. So as these battles rage on in all of us, we pray that You would reign in us and remind us that “nothing can separate us from God’s love” (Romans 8:38), that “You have been with us since the beginning” (John 1:1) and that You will always be, Emmanuel, God with us.

When words fail “hope will not be silent” (Harvey Milk). For it is “By faith (that) we began, by hope (that) we continue, and by revelation (in which) we shall obtain the whole (truth of God)” (Martin Luther). For “if there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God…that it is entirely a debt (that we) owe to love…and must serve others with it, not ourselves” (Martin Luther).