God.

We are on the edge of a time that we don’t understand.

That is always true, of course, because we are always on the edge of the future and we are poor acknowledgers that our lives are limited.

But this week, there were missiles in the Middle East and gunshots at our neighborhood Kroger. There were multi-headed tornados and multi-forms of cancer in our friends. There were murders of people who were doing nothing other that loving you and loving other people  And the news, both reported and rumored, promises more uncertainty.

God.

It’s easy in the hospital to think about the uncertainty and ending of life. And to be immobilized by the inevitability of death.

But you invite us, in the face of death, to accept that it exists and then to live the life we have in conversation with you, both now and forever.

You invite us to care for others as you have cared for us, to love others as you have loved us, to comfort others as you have comforted us, to live with others as you have lived with us.

I ask that you will give us courage to accept that our comfort is uncertain. I ask that you will give us discernment to see the injustice others live in, and the energy to respond.

I ask that you will give us peace, and the capacity to make that peace for others.

We ask through Christ our Lord.

Amen.