This morning, I was afforded the opportunity to attend and serve in Governor Larry Hogan’s National Day of Prayer Breakfast at the Navy- Marine Corps Memorial Stadium.  I was asked to pray for families in keeping with the theme of the gathering “Celebrating Peace and Unity in the Community.”  I offer these words to attendees and now to you:

We have come to beseech the God of family, Who does not call us subjects but daughters and sons, amazed that You are not simply familiar with us but You know us by name. No birth order, there is no first, middle or last child.  Loved without position or subsequent hierarchy, we are all the same and all mysteriously Your favorite.

We have come to bless the God of family, Who works eternally but comes home to us and prepares a table for us, managing the calendar of eternity and our day- to- day schedule, Who carpools with angels yet delights in walking with us, Who pulls up a chair to share in our life’s stories— because You can relate to us. We are so grateful that You meet us eye- to- eye and we bow our heads in hopes of one day looking up to see in each other our kinship. We confess that because You are related to us all, there is no need for comparison, conceit or competition.

We are all family and we pray for the ties that bind us together: umbilical cords, shoestrings, jump ropes and spaghetti dinners. We pray that they might be strengthened by the hope of Your heart. We ask that its beat would become our rhythm, that its cadence might become our calling, that we might live with the understanding that our fellowship can never end, that we are stuck together—because You are the Thread that holds us all together.

We pray that You would tie up loose ends, righting wrongs and making peace out of accountability, forgiveness and trust, stirring in unmeasured amounts of love, grace and mercy for taste. We pray that clasped hands might join hands more readily, letting go of all defenses, making ourselves vulnerable again to each other. We pray that You would reconcile and restore our connection as husbands and wives, sisters and brothers, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, Your daughters and sons—because we have always been Your family.  Amen.