Weaving Prayer Into the Tapestry of Life

One of the prayer prompts in Weaving Prayer Into the Tapestry of Life – a prayer of petition on page 6 of the book – says: “As Jesus blessed the children, so also I ask your blessing for children.” My mind has come back to that prayer over and over recently. The prayer continues: “I pray for the children of the world with all of their potential and vulnerability.” The news has been full of stories about the vulnerability of children: the kidnapped girls in Africa, the children from Latin America pouring across the borders into the United States seeking safety from the violence of their home coountries, the Pope’s initiative with survivors of sexual abuse by priests to set a new direction for the Roman Catholic Church in dealing with pedophile priests, the children of Syria and Gaza who are refugees from the violence there. The list goes on. The prayer prompt concludes simply with “I share with you my concerns and my hopes for particular children…” The question for me now is “Where do I start?” I have decided to journal this prayer because it is so huge and so needful right now. I am beginning by am making a list of my concerns and a list of my hopes for the African girls. The list can then be my prayer that can be repeated and adapted as the news comes in. The concerns part is easy – their physical safety, their emotional wellbeing, their families in their anxiety, the government leaders who seem so helpless, the kidnappers who may be holding the girls as hostages for political purposes. My prayer is, of course, for the safe return of the girls soon. But as I thought about my hopes, a picture of John McCain’s face popped into my mind. Aha! That is the hope. McCain spent 5 years in the “Hanoi Hilton” (the nickname for the prisoner of war camp in North Vietnam) and came out to become a senator and presidential candidate. My hope is that the girls will survive this ordeal to grow into healthy, productive adults, not severely damaged, but perhaps in some ways through the mercy of God enriched by this experience. That is my prayer to be repeated and modified until they are released. Of course this is just one part of a much larger picture. But for now I am just praying for these children.