My friend Michelle and her partner had to take a spur-of-the-moment trip into Seattle today and are staying the night with us. She works up in Vancouver for the rights of women who have been trafficked into the sex industry. Below is a prayer she wrote for a gathering. I invite you to pray for these women, to spread wide your imagination, and to live into freedom and possibility for all those who have been oppressed.
Scripture For a long time I have kept silent, I have been quiet and held myself back. But now, like a woman in childbirth, I cry out, I gasp and pant.
I will lay waste the mountains and hills and dry up all their vegetation; I will turn rivers into islands and dry up the pools. I will lead the blind by ways they have not known, along unfamiliar paths I will guide them; I will turn the darkness into light before them and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do; I will not forsake them. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. Setting the Stage The dominant culture, now and in every time, is grossly uncritical, cannot tolerate serious and fundamental criticism, and will go to great lengths to stop it.
Offer your own petitions in silence or out loud Response: Lord, in your mercy, Hear our prayer. God of all Freedom Hear the cries of your children who are sexually exploited and dehumanized. Bring them into the light. We remember the women and children in our city, nation and world who are living in pain and shame. God of all Compassion, Our hearts break over the pain that causes men to use vulnerable women and girls for selfish gratification.
