A Prayer for 19 Children and 2 Teachers
“The Lord is near to the broken-hearted,
and saves the crushed in spirit”
—
God who knows what it's like to lose a child,
Today 21 families are waking up without their loved ones.
Parents and step parents, grandparents, siblings, spouses, broken hearted and in shock.
Hold them near as they hang on to make it through the next day, the next hour, the next minute.
As they try to make sense of a senseless event.
As they catalog each memory, the last of its kind.
As they bury their dreams along with their babies.
God who blesses the meek,
Today children are waking up after a night full of nightmares.
After seeing their classmates slain.
Their bodies are in tact, but their hearts, their thoughts, their neural pathways are forever altered.
Hold them near as they learn how to function in a society that cannot, or will not protect them.
Give them strength of spirit to be a generation that transforms their pain into action, their losses into charity.
God who sees every tear,
Today we are saddened but not shocked.
We are mournful but not surprised.
And we are fearful, because we are not safe and our children are not safe.
Because our children need an education.
Because along with reading and math, they also learn to take cover.
Because we could be the next ones on the news.
We know that our world should not be this way.
We know that it is up to us to protect these vulnerable ones and we have failed to do that.
We are like the prophet Isaiah, shouting "Woe is me! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I come from a people of unclean lips."
Because America is stuck in a cycle of violence from which we can’t seem to escape.
Because our prayers feel empty and unanswered.
Still we ask: God in heaven, bring justice. Bring change.
And let us make it so.
Amen.
Rev. Kelsey Lewis Vincent
Pastor for Youth & Families