Our community is reeling from yesterday’s tragic events. Please lift up the residents of McGregor as we pick up the pieces and for our students as they return to school. Pastor JT from Zion shared this prayer yesterday and as he is much more eloquent than I, we are sharing it here. May our unity and love shine brighter than the evil deeds of the day.
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Dear Family in Christ at Zion and beyond. I am reaching out in mutual grief, heartbreak, frustration, and hope in the Gospel regarding the five slain victims and the assailant in McGregor today. We are all among those afflicted by these actions as well. Our spiritual, mental, emotional and physical reactions to such news is very real. Sadly, such events are increasing. In our small community, we are knit together into a fabric of interconnectedness – a beautiful mosaic of life and relationships, and now there are holes and blood stains in the fabric that represents all of us. The fabric is ripped in all directions to all of us who now grieve them. Kyrie Elaison! Lord! Have mercy! Mercy is not our deserving, but by grace, through the death of Jesus, it is what God offers and His perfect love. It will help more and more with time. Activating the power of God through the presence of the Holy Spirit in prayer will also help.
We pray for those whose lives were taken today. We pray for the those closest to them who are most afflicted. The dreams, the hopes, the unknowns – shattered. We commend them to God’s perfect love and care. We also pray for the gunman – in his brokenness and for his healing. While we were enemies of God, Christ interceded for us (Romans). While we have life and breath, we are still able to receive mercy and forgiveness. This is a tough prayer. Sometimes the hardest thing is the right thing.
Please pray also that we as a people, nation and world could get back to a place where we value the dignity of life, recognizing the very image of God in every other person from conception to grave, and within that portion of God’s image, in the hearts of believers, the living Temple of the Holy Spirit. Pray for more reasons to love and unite and less reason to hate and dismiss. Sisters and Brothers, God weeps with us this day. May He give you the true peace that comes from Him alone, + Pr JT
