PRAYER
by Jennifer Giandalone
September
18, 2001
Dear Heavenly Father, our hearts lift upward to you for solace, comfort and hope during our time of great need. Our hearts are filled with sadness, confusion, and deep emotion for which we have no words.
We pray you will bless us
with patience as the coming days, weeks and months pass.
Help us to withstand the not knowing, and give us the strength to absorb
what horrors unfold as our understanding of what has happened to our nation, our
very beings, becomes clearer.
Bless us Father with
flexible hearts filled with kindness. Guide us in putting our growing anger into creative actions
of assistance, comfort, and solidarity as a nation of good people seeking peace.
Help us serve as examples of goodness so that we may help our children
see more than the evil that touched us September 11th.
Help us resist our own fears and prejudices so our hearts can remain open
to your great love and comfort.
Keep us mindful of our
nation’s great diversity as we hear the survivors share their experiences with
different accents, and faces of many colors.
We all shed tears that taste of salt.
The blood of all humanity is red. Keep
us mindful of our collective heritage in the days and months ahead.
Give us the strength to gently guide those among us whose horror at this
recent attack upon innocents has led them to immediate condemnation of all
unlike themselves. Give us the
words and wisdom to gently pierce any hardening hearts we may encounter in order
for your love to be let in and your miraculous healing to begin.
As women of the Fraternal
Order of Eagles, it is incumbent upon us to put our homes in order.
Help each of us to make our home a safe haven for our families and our
friends. May all who enter leave
replenished, nourished and comforted by the peace that exists within homes
enriched by your presence. May the
strength we foster in our homes extend to our great nation as we unite in the
face of terrorism. We pray
for our leaders—political, spiritual, national and local.
Finally dear Lord we ask
that you especially comfort those family members and friends of your children
who died in the face of this evil. May the warmth and comfort of a loving nation surround these
innocent victims, and may we be granted the strength to provide this comfort for
as long as it may be needed. In the
days, weeks and months ahead we will become more and more aware of the depth of
this tragedy and its effects on thousands of our brothers and sisters.
We ask you to remain especially close to our hearts, and uphold us as a
grieving family as we bury the remains of those whose souls you now hold in your
safe and loving arms.
God bless this sisterhood.
God bless this nation. God
bless all who stand united against the evil of terrorism.
Amen.