Contributed
Below is a letter submitted to BladenOnline.com by Pastor Brock Meyer to the Bladen Charge.
Dear Church Family,
I hope everyone is feeling well and in good health. There is much anxiety in the world about the spread of the coronavirus. Let us remain calm and hopeful! This too shall pass. However, I want to let everyone know that we will put some practices in place for the time being. Right now the best proactive practice to prevent the spread of viruses is to practice social distance. We will continue to have everything as scheduled, but let us refrain from hand holding or hugging. We will temporarily suspend the ”Passing of the Peace,” during worship. We are also doing everything we can to keep our facilities clean. We encourage good hygiene and hand washing. If you are not feeling well, we encourage you to take a rest and stay home, let us know how we can help and how we can pray.
We look forward to seeing everyone in worship. We care about the wellbeing of our church family and are doing what we can to help us remain healthy and safe. And for those who are sick and working in the health field, let us bathe them in prayer. I am including a prayer for the sick below that I have found very powerful and comforting.
In the love of Christ,
Pastor Brock Meyer
A prayer for the sick:
For this brief moment of pause, for this reminder of my own weakness and of my dependence upon you, I thank you, O Lord.
A day such as this, in which I endure a measure of sickness or unease, is a reminder that the redemption of all things is not yet complete. It is a reminder that this body will decline and one day fail, and so it is also a reminder that the ways I spend my days matter – for my hours, revealed like veins of gold beneath a rushing stream, are a limited resource to be purposefully mined or forever lost.
A day such a this is a reminder that good health and vigor are gifts to be consciously and gratefully enjoyed, and to be invested while they might, in eternal things. So let me finish this day, O Lord, wiser than I began it.
Let me live now, in light of the knowledge that a time might come in this life when I feel such sickness and discomfort for a long season, when I must adjust to a “new normal,” when my abilities are limited either by the slow decline of age or from some accident, injury, or disease. Therefore let me use the good health that I have while I have it, presuming nothing.
Let me use it to serve well, to love well, to care for your people, your creation, to spend my allotted days cherishing hearts, creating beauty, bringing order, offering healing, delighting in your goodness manifest to me in a million ways, and so to one day come to the end of my days having stewarded them well.
Heal my body from this sickness, O Christ My Healer.
Be Gracious.
Give Rest.
Raise me again to health with a heightened sense of thankfulness for the unmerited gift of well-being, and also with a greater sense of compassion for those who suffer lingering ailment, disease, or discomfort. Teach me by my own small sufferings to be a better minister and friend to those who suffer greatly.
So let even the unease I feel today work as your servant, accomplishing your better purposes in me.
Amen.
Prayer taken from Every Moment Holy, Volume 1, by Douglas Kaine McKelvey
By Rev. Brock Meyer
About Author
