An Afternoon Prayer

O Light of the world,
You are the pure brightness of the ever-living God,
You are our God, holy and blest!
We come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes fall upon the dwindling light,
We see your Glory and beauty and
We are moved to sing your praises.
You are worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O God, O Giver of life,
Praised by happy voices and glorified throughout the world.

Lord God, Maker and King of the universe,
We give to you all honor, glory, praise, and worship;
We praise you in all things, in all places and in all circumstances because we know that you love us. We know that you are in control over all things, including the things we cannot understand and those things that cause us pain and suffering.

God, we try to give thanks for trials and hardships but at times it is so very hard. We understand that life is a test, that you only give a hard test to a good student, that you never trip up a slow student with an impossibly difficult test, but God it is difficult.

Grant us wisdom and insight to find the little bright moments in these hardships. Help us find meaning in our suffering.

Lord, when you hung upon the cross, you experienced the most piercing form of loneliness and abandonment ever experienced by any human being. Have mercy on us, remember us in our loneliness. Lord, our hearts aches for fellowship. We grow discouraged, because there are few to share with. Grant us others to stand with us. Help us to take that help, even though it can hurt our pride.

Send your Spirit to fill us, to guide and strengthen us, to protect us from our own weaknesses; send your holy angels to counsel and defend us. Send us into the world to do your will.

Lord, we do not understand the things that trouble us now. Therefore we thank you for this adversity, because it has brought things into sharp focus, it has to power to bring us closer to each other and closer to you. We ask for your grace to persevere in faith as long as this trial shall last.