Stuck on Repeat

God, I do not want to play this game again. I have discovered this is the exact reason I do not, personally, find video games enjoyable. To play the same thing repeatedly until it’s beaten is disheartening.

But then I remember what I tell my children. We are not video game characters, remote controlled by God. We have free will.

And you are a God of grace, letting us try multiple times to get it right. Putting us back at the beginning of our journey–to fix the pandemic, to become antiracist, to help those in need–over and over again.

When we get stuck like a broken record (remember those?) you remind us, miraculously, that we can move the needle.

The end to this pandemic is compassion.

In a time when love looks like giving masks to one another. In a time when money can be collected for rent. In a time when thousands suddenly have the time and emotional energy to march for Black Lives Matter. In a time when we can look at our budgets and see where our health and school funds lay in the priorities, you remind us; we are empowered to change things–together.

Lord, walk with me, walk with us. When we stumble and trip help us to have compassion for one another. Let masks flow like floods. When teachers and parents come together to make tough decisions; let our love overpower any stinginess.

When we are stuck in groundhog day, teach us that living our your compassion is more important than ever.

Help us to defeat the challenges, and to remember that we are playing on the team. And when we feel overwhelmed, help us to rest, to cry and then to get back up and do it all again.

Hold these prayers in the palm of your hand we pray.

Amen.

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Feel free to use or adapt with credit to Pastor Katy Stenta

Pandemic Prayers & Resources

Author: katyandtheword

Pastor Katy has enjoyed ministry at New Covenant since 2010, where the church has solidified its community focus. She now works at Capital CFO plus as the Non Profit Director. All opinions expressed on this blog are her own and do not reflect those of Capital CFO plus. Prior to that she studied both Theology and Christian Formation at Princeton Theological Seminary. She also served as an Assistant Chaplain at Trenton Psychiatric Hospital and as the Christian Educational Coordinator at Bethany Presbyterian at Bloomfield, NJ. She is an writer and is published in Enfleshed, Sermonsuite, Presbyterian's today and Outlook. She writes prayers, liturgy, poems and public theology and is pursuing her doctorate in ministry in Creative Write and Pittsburgh Theological Seminary. She enjoys working within and connecting to the community, is known to laugh a lot during service, and tells as many stories as possible. Pastor Katy loves reading Science Fiction and Fantasy, theater, arts and crafts, music, playing with children and sunshine, and continues to try to be as (w)holistically Christian as possible. "Publisher after publisher turned down A Wrinkle in Time," L'Engle wrote, "because it deals overtly with the problem of evil, and it was too difficult for children, and was it a children's or an adult's book, anyhow?" The next year it won the prestigious John Newbery Medal. Tolkien states in the foreword to The Lord of the Rings that he disliked allegories and that the story was not one.[66] Instead he preferred what he termed "applicability", the freedom of the reader to interpret the work in the light of his or her own life and times. View all posts by katyandtheword