Prayers on Thursday

Each week at church we have the Prayers of the People and there is a brief pause for silent reflection, but I find there is never enough time to get to everyone I want to pray for, so I thought I would do that here. I know "thoughts and prayers" get a bad rap, but I really do pray for these people on a fairly regular basis.

The Prayers of the People is structured into three sections - the first is to thank God for our blessings, I will be doing a post on what I'm thankful for next week (#thanksgiving) so this post focuses on petitions and intercessions.  Petitions are specific prayers for people that we know that could use some extra love and care.  Intercessions are prayers offered for the local and international communities, more general that petitions.

So this week my petitions are for:

(I would typically name individuals in my head, but will not do that here)
People who are living with an illness.
People who are dying.
People who are helping those living with an illness or who are dying.
People who recently lost someone.
People who are struggling to get pregnant.
People who are pregnant.

And my intercessions are for:

Our world leaders and my hope for them to focus on what we need to do for the future, not just ways to get back to the "good old days".
People in our city that live on the streets or in precarious housing.
Those poor dear children (and their parents) at the Mexico/US border.
Parents who don't know how they will feed their children.
The people who have been involved in the various shootings in our city over the past few weeks/months - both the shooters and the victims.

Lord hear our prayer.