I wrote this prayer a couple months into the pandemic. Lockdowns, restrictions, uncertainties. When I looked at it this week, I realized that those particulars have changed. But the things in this prayer are actually still all true. So I’m using it again.

And I understand that this is the day we call Mother’s Day. And I understand that’s a complicated holiday for many people for many reasons.

So I’ll acknowledge my love for my mother (resting in God), Nancy who is my wife, and our daughter, Hope. Three mothers for whom I am deeply grateful.

Let us pray.

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God.

It’s really hard for some of us to talk to you right now.

It’s not that we don’t like you.
It’s not that we are angry with you.
It’s not that we are bored with you.

I think it’s more that we are having a hard time concentrating on anything for very long, and we think that in order to talk to you we need to concentrate on you.

And with disruptions with work and church and life,
with frustrations with friends and family and culture,
with uncertainty about the present and the future,
it’s hard to concentrate.

And with questions about who we are and what we are supposed to be about, we struggle to quiet ourselves.

When we come to you with that kind of disruption, we think we ought to confess something.

We should confess a lack of focus.
We should confess a lack of faith.
We should confess a lack of confidence in you.

It’s hard to confess all that.

Perhaps because those aren’t things to confess.
Perhaps you aren’t pointing out our questions as sins.
Perhaps you are calling out to our souls with hope.

Help us God to continue to do good.
Help us God to find courage in caring.
Help us God to find calmness in your presence.

Through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

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From God. We Still Need You: A Year of Pandemic Prayer and Practice from a Hospital Chaplain