God Who Offers Amazing Grace,
May today be a day of giving thanks. As we prepare to celebrate, again, the birth of Jesus may we reflect on all our blessings. We seek to be thankful in our hearts, O Lord, but our actions don’t always reflect that desire. Please forgive us and welcome us into the realm of Your overwhelming love. We are undeserving, yet You are gracious toward us. Your spirit enlivens our lives. Today, O God, we give you thanks with our hearts, our minds and our actions. In Jesus’ name we offer this prayer. AMEN.
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We have so many requests for prayer, spoken and confidential. May we pray universal prayers for all those in need at Central and in our community.
Goldia Rasmussen is at Greenbriar Nursing Home. She has declined considerably. Please continue to pray for Goldia and for her neighbor down the hall, Birdene Schoonover.
Bert Sims was admitted to St. Mary’s hospital on Saturday evening. Please pray for Bert and our other members there: Helen Frost, Mary Ruth Cooper, Clo Rine and a friend, Mary Jo Summers.
Floreine Oltmans and Jim Walta are both in very critical condition in OKC hospitals. Please pray for them.
This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.
An email has been circulating with the following link showing four tenors singing Amazing Grace at the Coliseum in Rome. I thought you might enjoy listening. http://www.clarrissegill.com/videoclips/amazing_grace.php
Remember, we are reading through the New Testament and most of the Old Testament in three years with our daily scripture readings. The scripture for today is Job 3:1-26:
After this Job opened his mouth and cursed the day of his birth. Job said:“Let the day perish in which I was born, and the night that said, ‘A man-child is conceived. ‘Let that day be darkness! May God above not seek it, or light shine on it. Let gloom and deep darkness claim it. Let clouds settle upon it; let the blackness of the day terrify it. That night—let thick darkness seize it! let it not rejoice among the days of the year; let it not come into the number of the months. Yes, let that night be barren; let no joyful cry be heard in it. Let those curse it who curse the Sea, those who are skilled to rouse up Leviathan. Let the stars of its dawn be dark; let it hope for light, but have none; may it not see the eyelids of the morning—because it did not shut the doors of my mother’s womb, and hide trouble from my eyes.
“Why did I not die at birth, come forth from the womb and expire? Why were there knees to receive me, or breasts for me to suck? Now I would be lying down and quiet; I would be asleep; then I would be at rest with kings and counselors of the earth who rebuild ruins for themselves, or with princes who have gold, who fill their houses with silver. Or why was I not buried like a stillborn child, like an infant that never sees the light? There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest. There the prisoners are at ease together; they do not hear the voice of the taskmaster. The small and the great are there, and the slaves are free from their masters.
“Why is light given to one in misery, and life to the bitter in soul, who long for death, but it does not come, and dig for it more than for hidden treasures; who rejoice exceedingly, and are glad when they find the grave? Why is light given to one who cannot see the way, whom God has fenced in? For my sighing comes like my bread, and my groanings are poured out like water. Truly the thing that I fear comes upon me, and what I dread befalls me. I am not at ease, nor am I quiet; I have no rest; but trouble comes.”
Grace and peace,
John McLemore
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