Renewal and Comfort for the Sorrowing

O LORD, our God, we desire to feel Thee near us in spirit and in body at this time. We know that in Thee we live and move and have our being, but we are cast down and easily disquieted, and we wander in many a sad wilderness where we lose the conscious experience of Thy presence. Yet the deepest yearning of our hearts is unto Thee. As the hart panteth after the waterbrooks, so pant our souls after Thee, O God. Nothing less than Thyself can still the hunger, or quench the thirst with which Thou hast inspired us. Power of our souls! enter Thou into them and fit them for Thyself, making them pure with Christ's purity, loving and lovable with His love.

As we feel Thy presence we know we are not what we ought to be. Help us to bring into the clear light of the mind whatever evil lurks within, that the conscience may be aroused to lift up its voice and spare not. Pardon the sins of the inner life. Forgive the unbelief that is ever loosening our hold upon Thy supreme realities; the shortsightedness that ever stays our vision upon things temporal and material; the pride of spirit or of intellect that wars against all loveliness and grace; the coldness of heart that never melts into humility, and is never warmed into self-sacrifice. O God, pity us. Leave us not to our loveless, lifeless ways. Let the chaff within us be blown away by the breath of Thy judgment, and let the wheat be garnered by the varied ministries of Thy grace! Let our dreary wastes blossom once more, and let our wilderness be as the garden of the Lord!

In the multitude of our own wants, we would not forget the wants of others. Look upon those who especially need Thy comfort. Be present in Thy consoling pity with those who grieve because death has robbed them of loved ones, who weep for a sunshine that never returns. Let them realise that the realms of death and life alike are Thine. Solace all that mourn with a grief that saps the mind and breaks the heart, and grant them to believe that though weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning. For those who are anxious and overstrained, laden with burdens which are not of Thy sending, we beseech Thy heavenly benediction. Give them freedom of heart, peace of conscience, the rest of lying still in Thy hands, the joy of surrendering all their cares to Thee, who carest for every creature Thou hast made. Whatever be the need or the desire, do Thou supply it according to the riches of Thy grace in glory by Christ Jesus. Amen.