Nadia Bolz-Weber offers prayer as conversation

Dear God of all beings, 

This pandemic is making my life so small that I am thinking of myself way more than I should. So for today, I send my prayers out on behalf of others and not myself. May my prayers connect me to them THROUGH you – like gossamer floss threaded through a divine needle.  

I pray calm for all who are struck with terror every time they cough, or a loved one coughs or someone passing them in the supermarket coughs.

I pray healing for those sick with COVID. 

I pray rest for exhausted nurses, doctors and other heroes I don’t always think about like the hospital laundry workers and cafeteria cooks.

I pray comfort for the lonely. 

I pray rescue for the evicted.

I pray solace for the grieving. (And I’m sure you already know this Lord, but that’s basically everyone on the planet right now. Grief is the baseline for all of us. No more taking turns.)

I pray the gift of increased generosity in those who have more.

I pray mercy for the incarcerated and all who love them.

I pray fortitude for those who never ever thought they’d be homeschooling small children and are losing their minds.

I pray wisdom for our leaders.

I pray humility for the powerful. 

I pray compassion for clergy and counselors and everyone else who is doing emotional and spiritual triage for others and yet are also deeply affected by the pandemic in their own quiet ways. 

And for all of us, more joy please. Every tiny bit of joy possible during this shit-show. Amen.

Nadia Bolz-Weber, The Corners blog, November 29, 2020
Nadia is an author, Lutheran minister and public theologian. She served as the founding pastor of House for All Sinners and Saints, a congregation in Denver, Colorado until July 8, 2018. She is also a three-time New York Times bestselling author. Her most recent book is Shameless: A Sexual Reformation, 2019