Christian prayer and chat thread Open to all

[Dutchoma]

The old thread was nearly full, so here is a new one. Oldies and newbies, chat or prayer, all welcome.

Praying especially for MHD and JanFeb’s daughter.
Also praying for all who are preparing Holy Week/Easter services.

I was in the church at Sandringham today as I'm on holiday. Said a prayer for the soul of Prince Philip and for the Queen being left alone. They have loads of silver all over the pulpit and altar. More impressive than your average country church. Interesting.

Hope Zebra is OK. No one here judges if you went to church or not. Only that you feel better about yourself however you get there the Lord will lead you.

Coffee cup I'm sorry your holiday was cancelled I wonder if its the Lord looking out for you and you will be safer not going. Its no wonder you feel flat. I pray for you to feel uplifted by the small things we can all be grateful for. The Lord is good and all around us. I hope this goodness will strike you and help you to feel a bit better.

Rafals I think the online worship is a good option until things settle down more. Especially with your asthma. I don't want to discourage as you should go if you want but there is such blessing in spiritual communion and most important to make time for God one way or another has got to be what counts.

Thanks Zen, Im sure you are right.

Also hoping zebra is okay

zebra, I would guess that I’m not the only one here who wishes they could reach out and give you a big, long hug (if you’re a hugger!). And I’m sure the Lord does too, spiritually speaking. We have ALL sinned, but Jesus’s death on the cross means we do not need to feel guilt and shame, He’s taken that upon himself, because of his great love for us.

On theology: Jesus is both God and the Son of God, which is a little difficult to grasp sometimes. Am sure someone here will have a good way of explaining it.

With prayers for you.

Please can I ask for prayers for someone I know through work but I'm concerned for their mental health this evening. I don't know him well but our paths crossed today and it was clear he wasn't in a good place.
I'd messaged him early this evening with helpline details and urged him to contact NHS111 but I've heard nothing from him since about 6pm. Unfortunately I don't know his home address and I feel helpless until tomorrow morning when, if I still can't get hold of him, I'll get his Area Manager to look into his home address / next of kin.

Just seen this SES. I hope you will be able to establish contact today and that all is well.

Any news SES? Sounds worrying

Thank you!

I messaged him again around 1pm today as I'd not heard anything and he replied around 4pm. He says he's scared and acknowledges he's made mistakes that have got him in this difficult place but he says he's reading the Bible to try and calm himself and I've suggested the book of Psalms may help. I feel much better having heard from him but please do keep him in your prayers.

Oh dear Ses I will add my prayers for your colleague that the Lord walks with him and holds him through the dark times until he comes out the other side.

Zebra I thought about you this week when listening to my morning bible podcast talking about shame. He said it can be a good thing, as you say in your post above (I understand, we don't want to do wrong and then be shameless). But the thing I wanted to share with you was his words about the problem of toxic shame . He said some people feel shame too keenly and take shame upon themselves even beyond the truth of the matter. It seems to me that this applies to you. I continue to pray that God will work productively in your life to uplift you and help you not to be burdened by crushing guilt and sadness.

I hope everyone here is having a peaceful and worshipful Sunday, however you chose to honour the sabbath. I'm still on holiday so just been to online mass.

That sounds really positive Zebra. I hope you go and have a good experience there. I grew up going to a Methodist church and only have good memories of a warm and relaxed church.

I'm actually not really sure of the differences between Methodist and other non-catholic churches. I feel like i should look into this for interest :)

Hope you are feeling okay xx

I haven’t posted here in a long time, but could I possibly ask for prayers for a relative tonight. She’s been very ill during pregnancy and gave birth prematurely earlier today. Please could you pray for her recovery and for her baby who was born very early and is in the neonatal unit. Thank you so much.

Praying for your friend and her baby penguins 🙏

Adding my prayers too

Penguins - Hi! I'm not sure that we've "met" but please be assured of my prayers for your relative and her baby.

Hope everyone else is doing ok? I was off work last week and meant to go and visit a good friend in York but sadly had to cancel as her 15yo DD tested positive for COVID. She had mild symptoms but my friend's DH is clinically very vulnerable (he is a quadriplegic and so has no use of muscles in his chest to cough and fight infection), so prayers please that he doesn't catch it. He is double jabbed and has been keeping his distance since the positive test so hopefully will be ok.

SES these things are so scary when they come close to our friends and relatives. I hope your friend and all her family are alright.

Thank you so much for your prayers everyone. My relative is still very ill but the latest news sounded hopeful, and her baby is doing as well as could be hoped for given how prematurely she was born. I’m also praying for all her close family who are understandably finding it hard to manage, and for all the hospital staff who are caring for them both.

Ses, I’m praying for your friend’s DH and I hope the vaccinations and social distancing help him avoid illness.

Thanks for the update Penguins I will continue to pray for the family.

@SudokuZebra I haven't posted in reply to you before but I've been reading your posts and praying for you. I'm so glad you have found a minister who has listened and given you a truly Christian response. You can't change what happened but you are forgiven by God and you can, with time and help and prayer, forgive yourself. Every morning I use a prayer app called Lectio 365 and yesterday's was about forgiveness and I thought of you at the time. Seeing your post just now I have screenshot a part of it. I hope it helps a little.

Hello all.

I'm sorry I've been AWOL. I've been having a tough time with lots and lots of things all happening at once, and I've been hiding away a bit. But lovely Oma reached out to me and I thought I'd come and say hello. Thank you for all your prayers and love about the loss of my friend. Things are still raw but other stuff going on too. My dad had 4 strokes last weekend and has a blood clot on his brain so prayers very much appreciated for him.

I just wanted to welcome @SesTheBrave back - we missed you and it's great to see you. I'm sorry to hear about your friends family, hope that he doesn't get covid. It's so hard when vulnerable to it, the fear never quite goes away. Being CEV I think it's left a lot of us with a real residual fear and long term worry about it. Worrying for your friend. How are you doing? I'm glad you've found a church you feel settled in but so sorry to hear about the nastiness in the FB group. I really struggle with that kind of thing among Christians. I see a lot on Twitter and FB. We should be uniting and celebrating our differences, listening to one another. I think we've always tried to do that here, even here in the dusty charismatic corner I've found nothing but love and acceptance, and I've learned a lot about different traditions and ways of worship. I love that we are so diverse and there are so many ways of expressing worship that speak to us as individuals.

@SudokuZebra I'm so sorry to hear of the journey you've been on. I just want to reiterate everything the others have said about God's forgiveness.

It is not pointless. God's forgiveness is free and hugs, it is without borders, it can lift you out of shame. You don't have to earn it, you don't have to recompense, you don't have to hold on to it. Can I encourage you to go and read the story of the prodigal son in Luke 15? What stands out to me about that story is that as the son approaches, bowed down with guilt and shame, the father doesn't wait there with judgment, but instead he runs towards him with arms outstretched and kisses him. Then he throws a huge party for him, with the best food, the best clothes. He shows lavish and reckless generosity and complete, full forgiveness without caveat or condition.

God runs towards you too, with arms outstretched, with words of grace and love. He knows what you are feeling and longs to take off the burden of shame, to fill you instead with the inexpressible joy of his love that overcomes all shame and all sin.

It's ok to be aware of the starkness of sin, but that doesn't mean keeping hold of guilt, because Jesus died so that we can be free of that, reconciling us with God and taking away the need for us to try and do it on our own, which is impossible anyway. Next time you begin to feel this way, maybe think about the father running to meet the son, and wait for his embrace, where you are free. I really pray you find a church where you can be comfortable and start to live within the truth of God's love over you.

I wanted to share these words from Luke for you to think on, but also this image which is Rembrandt's painting of the story. I hope that it blesses you - the utter love of the father, the way the son just falls into him, overcome.