This is the final prayer in the Five Prayers To Get Us Through The Election series. If you are feeling lost or like your world has been turned upside down, please check out the previous prayers.
My intention with this series was to help readers make it through this very ugly and divisive election season with just a little bit of sanity, grace, compassion and mercy for not only ourselves but those with whom we don’t agree. I genuinely hope someone found some comfort in these prayers of compassion and mercy.
After the election results, I found myself in a state of disbelief. I still feel like I am walking around in a fog or bad dream and wondering when I will snap out of it. It is now more than ever that I have to focus on the love, compassion and mercy that God has for us. I am at a record low for faith in humanity and feel like I am blindly searching for a way to make sense of all of this. Despair in your fellow man is a dark, dark place for an optimist and someone inclined to helping and mediating. I imagine the other INFP personalities feel like we are stumbling along without a purpose.
Many Christians felt very conflicted with this election. There was a feeling of helplessness in the selection of candidates yet it was our civic duty to move our country forward. Now we have an unlikely bedfellow that we will have to learn to live with.
I said in a previous post that God will not fall off God’s throne on November 9th and I still believe that is the case. God is still sovereign. However, God gave us free will and a charge to be good stewards of this good earth and each other. In light of our country’s decision I wonder how good of stewards we are being with God’s gift to us. Are we taking care of what we have been entrusted with? Are we taking care of this earth? Are we taking care of each other’s hearts? Even the heart’s that don’t come from the same background as ours, go to the same church or hold the same ideals?
As we move forward I feel the need to pause, hide away in what I know to be true; God’s eternal love. I am drawn to the quiet place and solace of the psalms.
“Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy of me, for in you my soul takes refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” (Psalm 57:1)
If you need a place of refuge, I hope this prayer will be a safe place of mercy and compassion for you.
Eternal and loving God-
Hide me under your wings. When I am weak and afraid of the unknown, shelter and protect me. Keep me safe until I am strong enough to venture out on my own.
I want to be strong for others. I want to serve and love. I want to show mercy and compassion but sometimes it is all too much. To know compassion means knowing suffering and sometimes I am not strong enough.
Let me hide in your love and mercy, strengthen me so I may do the good work of your kingdom.
Open my eyes to those around me. To those who are angry, hurting and confused; help me bring them peace. To those who wish to do me harm, ridicule me, tear me down; show me how to love them and forgive them. To those who don’t know where to turn and feel lost in a place they once knew and loved; make me a channel of your peace. Guide my words and actions so that I am only an example of your mercy and compassion to others.
Please heal the deep wound we inflict on each other with a knife of hate and divisiveness. Show us a way forward. Light a lamp so we may find the path you have set before us.
Amen
Shel Harrington
Amen. Thank you for sharing your compassion.