A rainbow of sticky notes with prayers for healing, strength, courage, and faith covered a large bulletin board in the Convention Center hallway. A second bulletin board had to be added so more prayers could be posted. A child’s wrote,
Dear, Lord I love you
that I can’t stop shoutin’
A mother asked for prayer for her daughter having a breast biopsy. Several children with cancer and a seven-year-old boy in Afghanistan were lifted up. People stopped to read and pray for those listed.
Please pray during my family’s hardship with homelessness.
We are currently in a shelter and need your prayers for strength. ThanksA job for Rodney
That the PC(USA) will claim the future rather than bemoaning the past
Keep Anders safe in Iraq
For my son’s salvation
Peace in Sudan and Congo
Love me!!
Meeting room E23a was converted into a chapel with “picture prayer responses” to the scripture theme of GA; “that all may have life in fullness.”
Children’s art graced the walls. Picking up on the larger context of the scripture in John, chapter 10, a crayon drawing portrayed the Good Shepherd fiercely protecting the sheep against a charging, snarling wolf. A white dove with an olive branch in its beak dominated a painting of a radiant sun shining through a bright cerulean sky. A two-foot wide butterfly had patterned wings made of people’s faces. The chapel was open all hours.
A daily chapel service from 10 to10:15 a.m. brought a moment of sheltered calm amid the busy schedule. As the election of the Stated Clerk proceeded, members of the Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) gathered for the 15 minutes of prayer in the chapel, as they had all week.
Tuesday evening a contemplative prayer service was offered to the commissioners. An ethereal rending of the Taize chant, “O Lord Hear My Prayer” deepened the sense of mystery as people came forward to quietly ask for healing prayer from prayer partners.
Both the chapel service and the Tuesday evening prayer service invited people to silently offer this prayer before they left.
I am giving thee worship with my whole life,
I am giving thee assent with my whole power,
I am giving thee praise with my whole tongue,
I am giving thee honour with my whole utterance,
I am giving thee reverence with my whole understanding,
I am giving thee offering with my whole thought,
I am giving thee praise with my whole fervour,
I am giving thee humility in the blood of the Lamb.
I am giving thee kneeling with my whole desire,
I am giving thee love with my whole heart,
I am giving thee affection with my whole sense;
I am giving thee my existence with my whole mind,
I am giving thee my soul, O God of all gods.
(Early Scottish, The Complete Book of Christian Prayer)
