a blessing for 2021 after a dumpster-fire of a year

oh God, 2020 has been a dumpster-fire year,
with one calamity after another.

Lord, how do we begin to process it?
how do we begin again?

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

Is the Lord among us, or not?
exodus 17:1-7

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

O God, you are my God,
earnestly I seek you;
my soul thirsts for you,
my body longs for you,
in a dry and weary land
where there is no water.
psalm 63:1

blessed are we,
as we sit in the last embers of the year
thinking of all that has passed,
praying for the radical healing we need.

blessed are we who wait in stillness,
and say o God, You are our strength
and our trust.
we lift up our souls to You and pray
revive us, restore us, and lift from us
those things that are too heavy for us to bear.

the coronavirus pandemic, Lord have mercy.
wildfires, Lord have mercy.
George Floyd, Lord have mercy.
lost jobs, Lord have mercy.
lockdowns, Lord have mercy.
system failures, Lord have mercy.
election conspiracies, Lord have mercy.
quarantines, Lord have mercy.
the economy, Lord have mercy.
homeschooling, Lord have mercy.
whistleblowers, Lord have mercy.
Brexit, Lord have mercy.
supply chain shortages, Lord have mercy.
Harvey Weinstein, Lord have mercy.
disinformation, Lord have mercy.
earthquakes, Lord have mercy.
social isolation, Lord have mercy.
wars, Lord have mercy.

come Lord, and let all Your goodness
pass before our eyes, all of it.
Your grace and love and
forgiveness and strength
that is for the healing of the nations
and the salvation of the whole world.

blessed are we who remember,
we have seen Your glory,
the glory of Your one and only Son
Jesus Christ, the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us.

we are listening.

God have mercy.
Christ have mercy.
Spirit have mercy.

stretch out. let the ground hold all your weight. until the stirring of the new thing.

“see, I am doing a new thing.
now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
i am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.”
isaiah 43:19