A Prayer of Lament
Our Father in Heaven, holy is your name –
may it be made holy again.
We cry out to you, standing in your presence,
and remembering your promises –
with your own words, Lord God, we declare it:
Syria is your people, Iraq your handiwork.
Yet our hearts have fainted.
We are oppressed.
We need to see your love and forgiveness.
How we need your comfort now –
we need to know your love more than ever.
How long, O Lord?
How long will you leave your people
in this state of weakness, this hole of wickedness?
How long will you leave the work of your hands,
and let the depravities of the evil one flourish?
How long must we be cut off from our loved ones?
How long will we be strangers among the living?
Have mercy on us, O God, have mercy.
Have mercy on your children’s children,
have mercy on those who declare your holy name.
Forgive us every sin, silence our sighing,
and bring the joy of your salvation to our mouths again.
Forgive our complicity with any oppression,
and our years of spiritual famine and faithless fear.
Forgive us, forgive our fathers and mothers,
forgive our friends and leaders, forgive our enemies.
Pour out your Spirit now, O Lord—as it is in heaven,
let your kingdom come.
Give us faith in place of faltering, fuel our hopes,
and let the earth see your glory made new.
Do what we cannot ask for or imagine,
and bring a real and lasting healing to our land.
Open the eyes of the blind, now,
and strike shame and repentance in the hearts of the guilty.
Heal the spirit of your churches,
and let your faithful ones be remembered aright.
Cause the name of Christ to be known,
and let his light bring morning to our night.
Be the same to us, O God, as you were
to the Israelites in the Exodus, and in the wilderness of Sinai.
So that gardens of peace would grow in these wastelands of war,
and that your name be lifted high.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
we pray this –
One God forever and ever praised.
Amen.
(Naji Umran)
