This prayer originally appeared in the Mennonite Women USA e-newsletter, “A Postcard and a Prayer.” The June issue of The Mennonite magazine will focus on stories of Mennonite women’s movements in honor of Mennonite Women USA’s centennial celebration.
God,
We confess to being closed to your people
as we go about our daily tasks.
We admit to putting your mission in a box,
confining it to particular places and times.
We pray now for openness to your Spirit
to respond to the people, questions, and needs around us.
We commit ourselves to crossing barriers in our daily lives
that we might find more of your people, listening and responding
to them in new and loving ways.
Go with us into the world to love and to serve all we encounter,
wherever they may be.
Anna Liechty Sawatzky is the writer for the 2017 Mennonite Women USA Bible study guide, Live Your Call: Embracing God’s Mission. This prayer is adapted from one she uses in the study guide. Anna lives with her husband and four sons in Goshen, Indiana. Anna works as a home visitor in a child abuse prevention program and spends most of her free time knitting at her children’s sporting events.
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