Help, God—hear me from the depths of despair!
Master, hear my cry for help! Listen hard!
Open your ears! Listen to my cries for mercy.
If you, God, kept records on wrongdoings, who would stand a chance?
Forgiveness is your way. That is why you are worshiped.
I pray to God—my life a prayer— and wait for what the Lord will say and do.
My life is on the line before God, my Lord, waiting and watching till morning...
Waiting and watching till morning.
O [quarantined people], wait and watch for God— with God’s arrival comes love.
With God’s arrival comes generous redemption.
No doubt about it—he’ll redeem [this world from covid-19],
And buy us back from captivity to sin.
Prayer (Reinhold Niebuhr, 1943)
God, give me grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.
Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next. Amen.