May is coming! I’ve often told people that this particular month arrives like a “sneak attack.” We are still somewhat bleary-eyed from the glow and busyness of Easter, and have barely had time to come up and catch our breath before May hits. It’s full. Full with graduation celebrations, Ascension Day and prep for Pentecost, end of year remembrances for ministry leaders and volunteers. Every Sunday is spoken for in one way or another.
Mother’s Day and Father’s Day are also wedged into these busy, pre-summer weeks. As mentioned in the earlier blogs in this series, some churches mark this day and choose to acknowledge and celebrate. And some, for pastoral care and concern reasons, choose not to. We want to emphasize that you know your context better than anyone else. You know the hurts – hidden or visible. You know the aches and pains, the exuberance and the milestones. So use your best pastoral wisdom for how, and if, you celebrate these days in your context.
For this final blog, we offer some tangible resources for these days, and for any Sunday you might want to acknowledge parents. We hope that this full series sparks your imagination for what might work in your church and bless your people. As always, we are here to answer your questions or consult if you want to share an idea! Blessings in these coming months.
Your WOrk is Happening Here (Featuring Leslie Jordan and Latifah Alattas)
Call to Worship for Mother’s or Father’s Day
Leader:
On this day of celebrating mothers/fathers,
We remember and lift them up to the Lord.
Mothers/fathers of young children, first-time mothers/fathers,
Working mothers/fathers, and single mothers/fathers
People of God: We see you and honor you today.
Leader:
Grieving mothers/fathers who have lost a child too soon,
And those who desire to be mothers/fathers
People of God: We see you and honor you today.
Leader:
All those who are missing their mothers/fathers,
And mothers/fathers who are missing their children
People of God: We see you and honor you today.
Leader:
Mothers/fathers who did not give birth to us biologically,
But have raised us and brought life to us in countless other ways
People of God: We see you and honor you today.
Leader:
In times of full joy and abundance,
In times of empty nests and empty cradles,
In all these God tends his flock like a shepherd
And carries the lambs close to his heart.
People of God: God sees and honors you today. Amen.
**Written by Sara Kyoungah White**
Prayers of the People
Leader: Today as we pray together, I will lead us in two movements –
first, thanksgivings for God’s work and the godly work of others in our lives; then we’ll offer prayers and petitions for God to work in our own lives, in the lives of others, and in our world.
I invite you now to share aloud and thank God for a blessing or a time you’ve been blessed and encouraged by another’s work. After each thanksgiving I will say, “It is God’s work,” and then we’ll all say, “It is beautiful.”
Leader [after each thanksgiving]: It is God’s work
People: It is beautiful
Leader: I invite you now to share aloud and ask God for where you or another need strength and wisdom and provision in daily life and work. It could be a full prayer or just a phrase, a word, a name, or a place that will allow us to pray with you. After each petition I’ll say, “God of Grace” and then we’ll all say, “Continue your work among us”
Leader [after each petition]: God of Grace
People: Continue your work among us
Leader: God of the living, we thank you that you set us in families and communities and teams and neighborhoods and groups and circles within circles. We praise you for every gracious effort that has touched our lives, for every good and perfect gift that comes from you. We pray that you would encourage our encouragers as we have been encouraged and comfort our comforters as we have been comforted. And even in the places and situations we know are far from good and perfect, we trust in your redemptive power. Make us agents of your healing and wholeness in every broken and unfinished place, in Jesus’ name. Amen.
**Written by Jenn Cavanaugh**
A Prayer for One Caring for Aging Parents
Creator, Redeemer, Mighty God,
Some days are more difficult than others. On good days, we remember with laughter about cherished memories, blessed moments, and moments of adversity we walked through together. I praise you for these days – for reminders of being a child, and having a parent who ably cared for my needs, spoke with wisdom and love, and was the first person I turned to for guidance or with good news.
Today, O God, I humbly ask for your help in the work you’ve called me to do caring for my aging parent.
Give me space to grieve all that has already been lost in life, even though there has been no death.
Give me patience and peace in the face of his(her) repetition, frustration, and anger.
Give me the will to keep showing up even when it is difficult and emotionally draining.
Give me Your empathy and love. I know it breaks your heart to see our bodies deteriorate and minds rapidly decline. May I bring your peace and your hope – reminders of the value of his life both to You, his Creator, and me, his child.
Use me, God, to help him prepare for his eternal home. Give me the words to say, the reassurance to offer, and the unwavering faith in the hope of the resurrection.
Strengthen me as I assure him that You will welcome him into eternal life not because of what he has done but what you have done for him in Christ Jesus.
Amen
**Written by Fred Ritsema and Katie Ritsema-Roelofs**
A Prayer for Caregivers
Your care is astounding as we look out at your vast creation and say with the Psalmist,
“When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is humankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them?
You take notice of our most helpless of babies, our frailest of elders, and our poorest of poor. You care when we don’t have the desire, the energy, or time to do so ourselves. Help us, O God, to trust your care in the midst of the heartaches of this world. When we struggle to see how your “plan” makes any sense or any difference. Gives us hearts that our assured that even in the valley of the shadow of death, you are there.
Today, we lift up those whose vocation of caregiving imitates your care for the world. We celebrate the ways you are using their hands and feet, hugs and words, to be there for the most vulnerable.
We lament the ways that caregivers are overwhelmed by the task you have given them; for the ways that caring for others limits or even eliminates energy to care for themselves; for the ways that caregivers are often underappreciated.
We cry out for justice in this vocation, especially among those who make their living from it. May you put people in power in the organizations they work for and the political spheres that influence local laws around them, so they may be more appropriately compensated for the endless hours they give to others and the difficult work they do.
We ask that you would fill caregivers with a patient perseverance saturated in love as they engage with the people they’ve been called to care for. May you provide times of respite, so that they can be the recipients of care. And may the labors of this vocation be used to your glory in your church, our community, and our world. Amen.
**Written by Travis Jamieson**
A Prayer for the Paradox of Parenting
Loving God,
On this day we bless you and give you thanks for parents. With gratitude we remember that parents come to us in many different ways:Grandparents, aunties and uncles who are parent figures, godparents, parents by birth, parents by marriage, parents through adoption, spiritual parents within our church community.
Bless these parents and the work of their hands. May they know each and every day that their labor is not in vain.
We thank you that each of us has a parental role to play in the lives of those around us. For you call each of us to love and care for another, watch over those who are young, disciple and walk with people of all ages. Renew our calling today to parent: whether biologically or spiritually, the young or the old, the day-to-day or from far away.
Loving God, we also recognize that the work of parenting is complex and often times painful. It takes us from one emotional extreme to another – from tremendous joy and happiness, to deep pain and paralyzing fear. We lament the hardship of parenting and the many ways it wounds us deeply. We pray for those among us for whom days like this reopen those wounds. We offer up our prayers and ask that you be close to the brokenhearted today.
We pray for those who have lost a child of any age.
We pray for those who want to be parents.
We pray for those who tenderly care for aging parents.
We pray for those with complex and fraught relationships with parents.
We pray for those estranged from their children.
We pray for foster parents, and biological parents.
We pray for those who struggle to provide for their children.
[Insert additional petitions here]
God, on this day we both celebrate with gratitude, and we pray with heavy hearts for the work of parenting. Thank you for being our Heavenly Father – present with us in our highs and lows, our joys and our sadness. May one generation commend your works to the next, telling your praiseworthy deeds, your power, and the wonders you have done. Amen.
The cloister of this day
(An office for the hours of an ordinary day)
Morning prayer (Lauds)
Creator of all things and this new day, I praise you for the gift of sleep, warm showers, and cups of coffee. As the house stirs and the morning hustle begins, awaken me to see that your patient work is happening here in this day. Amen
Mid-day prayer (sometimes called Sext or None):
Lord, where exactly is your work happening today? I miss the meaning in the menial, impatient with endless tasks and numbed by the repetition of it all. Remake the remains of this day into priestly acts of lunching and laundering, sweeping and shopping, each one beautiful to you and good service for others. Amen.
Dinner prayer (Vespers)
Jesus, Bread of life, meet us in this meal, the place where your work is happening. Nourish us with the goodness of this daily bread, the comforting clatter of conversation, and the joy of companionship, all evidence of your table grace. Amen.
Bedtime prayer (Compline)
God our protector, it’s in the dark that roots deepen and growth happens. As I lay down and tuck away my work of this day, rest me in the shelter of the Most High, secure in the knowledge that your good work is happening even as I sleep. Amen.
**Written by Phil Reinders**
