Lord, you are so patient with us. You brought us through Easter when we rejoiced at the news of the resurrection and the reality of the empty tomb. You were with us in the upper room when we remained behind locked doors due to fear, doubt and anxiety.   You walked alongside us as we returned to the day to day and tried to put this moment into its right perspective. As the memory of the Easter moment starts to fade, we ask that you return to us as fully and as completely as you were that day.

Help us to make the space for you in every portion of our lives; even the everyday.   Help us to find room for your love and your presence in our places of work, in our homes, in our schools and most importantly, in all those places we try to hide from you.   We know that you are chasing after us, and we ask to be smart enough, and brave enough, and faithful enough to let you in.

We know without question that You come to us in our everyday lives, moving out of this pristine setting of worship into our incredibly stressed and hectic worlds.  Forgive us when we aren’t always ready for you and don’t always see you or feel your presence. Forgive us when we see Easter as a Sunday, not as a Season, a way of life, or a fresh start.

We acknowledge that we let so many things crowd in on our lives and too often we let these distractions blurr out our awareness of your presence.  Even though for some of us its hard to see the risen Jesus, one to one, we have the assurance of your presence and your love with us.  Remind us to stand up and rejoice in this fact.  Let us embrace that truth with both hands.

We face each day not sure that we dare to believe in your presence with us. We hear the words of our hymns and our prayers, and we still let doubts and fears enter our lives. We want to believe. We need to believe. Yet, its just too easy to believe the garbage of the world around us, or to rely on the things it provides first.

And so we come to you, Lord, with all of our fears and doubts, our joys and sorrows, and our longings and dreams. We come broken, but willing to be fixed.  We bring these things to you in hope that you will hear our prayers and respond to our cries. We pray that you will peel away the scar tissue that surrounds our hearts.

As we do, we bring to you those people whom we love, and for whom issues of loneliness, pain, suffering, grief, and loss seem to abound.   We long to be their shoulder to lean on and arms to share.   Help us to be the face of Jesus to those who hurt.

At the same time and with the same assurance, we raise to you those who have rejoiced in new found faith, who have reconciled with loved ones, who have survived tragedy and sorrow, who are happy; and we want to dance in celebration for their good fortune.

Hear us, heal us, bless us, O Lord.

For we ask these things as an Easter People in the name of the One who was raised that we might have eternal life.  We use the words that he taught each of us to use in our prayers…  Our father….

(Pic by Marek52, Flickr.com, Creative Common License, 3/22/2008)