Pastor Jonathan prayed this prayer at the Westford vigil for victims of domestic violence on October 24th 2018. Please use it as a guide for praying for our community and those hurt by this very real issue. Thank you.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to pray for our community. I am going to read a Scripture tonight and frame my prayer around the themes in it—faith, hope and love. This Scripture passage is one that you usually hear read at weddings because it tells us what true love is. We need to be confronted with the grim reality of domestic violence but we also need to learn to love like this passage describes. If we do, there will be no place for domestic violence. Please feel free to close your eyes and pray with me or to just listen if that makes you feel more comfortable. I will read the verses and then I will pray.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7, 13 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres… 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. (NIV)
Let me pray.
Heavenly Father,
We pray for faith
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- Lord God, we pray that those hurt by domestic violence would not lose faith that life can get better.
- We pray that we as a community would have faith that we can make a difference.
- We pray the women, men, boys, and girls caught in domestic violence would have the faith to step out and ask for help.
- We pray that those who have lost their faith in you would find it again—and that for all of those who have fathers who have hurt them—that they would discover you to be a good and kind father.
We pray for hope
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- We pray that we as a community would find true hope and that domestic violence would become a thing of the past.
- We hopefully pray that more people in our community would care about this issue and that we would all keep our eyes and ears open for those who need help.
- We ask that you would use us to save lives and bring hope to those who need it.
We pray for love
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- We pray that those families and individuals who have been torn apart by this issue would experience healing and be able to safely love again.
- We pray that we would love those around us—caring for our neighbors as you call us to do and standing up for those who need help.
- We pray that you would help us model the kind of love we read about in the Scriptures for younger generations so that together we stop the cycle of violence and foster a better world.
- Heavenly Father, we take great comfort in knowing that you can relate to us in this pain. You lost your Son, Christ Jesus, to an act of violence that we as humanity committed against him, yet you love and forgive us. If you God can raise Jesus from the dead, we have faith and hope that your love can give us new life. May we love others like you love us.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.