A Prayer for Nepal

The death toll in Nepal is now over 2,000 people from Saturday’s massive earthquake near Kathmandu. It’s easy for us in US to feel removed from such an event. But please don’t ignore the devastation. Let the pain of the world become your pain so that you might develop the heart of God, who knows intimately the pain of us all. Let your prayers rise up. Here is one you can pray.

Compassionate God,

we’ve been taught to confess your compassion, your mercy,

your goodness, your grace;

today, we confess our confusion.

Thousands die through no human fault:

just the shifting of a plate and the poverty of a society,

a horrific catastrophe, an “act of God.”

We lack clarity, we see dimly:

we confess our confusion.

[Selah]

Yet we know, we confess:

you are a God who is merciful and gracious,

slow to anger,

and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness;

you are a God under the rubble, with the children and their mothers,

with the dead and the dying,

with the hurt and the living,

you are with…

We pray:

let your compassion take form;

comfort those who have lost loved ones,

ease the pain of the injured,

deliver food to the hungry and water to the thirsty,

lift up the hands of the helpers,

and send your people to comfort, ease, deliver, lift up.

Come quickly, Lord,

and have mercy.

Amen.