Prayer For Help As We Seek To Adjust To The "New Normal"
Thursday April 30, 2020
Lots of people have lots of adjustments to make in the "new normal" of our COVID-19 pandemic world. Let's pray for them. Let's also thank God for all that we have and for all that God gives us when He makes us new through Jesus.
Heavenly Father, we are grateful that you have brought us to this day of the “new normal.” We are so thankful that in many places the COVID-19 infection curve is bending and flattening and we are all able to think about what comes next.
We continue to pray for those families for whom the “new normal” is life without a loved one. Come alongside them and comfort them, we pray. Help them with whatever practical problems and details are facing them today. Give them grace to work out whatever arrangements are necessary in the new world of dealing with their loved one’s absence and sorting out their affairs when unexpected hurdles arise and emotionally they are already on grief overload. Comfort them. Support them. Give them grace to seek and find your heart during this horribly new time.
We pray for those who have no jobs to return to in this “new normal” and ask that you will help them make connections with industries that can use their skills and provide them with the money they need to take are of themselves and their families. Help them to be flexible in the application of their skills and allow You to show them new environments where they can be useful. Give them the willingness to study and be trained in a new field if that is what this new season is bringing.
We pray for seniors who are dealing with the line-ups and the new procedures and trying to hear what someone is saying through the plastic screen and wait in line without a place to sit (since all the benches have been removed), or try to remember and figure out what they need so someone else can shop for them and run errands for them. For those who are new to meeting with loved ones digitally I pray you will give them the help they need to learn those skills required and enjoy the interaction available to them. Bless them during the long hours of solitude on their own. Strengthen them and keep them healthy and safe in this “new normal” they are experiencing mostly in isolation.
We pray for parents trying to work at home and home school their kids at the same time. Give them patience and the ability to organize all the demands on their time.
We pray for health care workers – doctors, nurses, paramedics, community nurses, who are adjusting to working in environments that are full of risk and full of new procedures and patients with invisible but potentially deadly disease in them. We pray for army personnel who are doing things they never thought they would in this “new normal” – caring for seniors in long term care facilities. We pray for retired health care workers who have returned to the work force and changed their planned activities in retirement. Give them stamina and wisdom as they fit back in to the work force during this stressful time. We pray for cleaners and shelf stockers and store clerks and bank tellers and all of those who are working with new demands and new routines to keep all of us safe and healthy. We pray for factory workers who have switched up their jobs and are now making personal protective equipment for the medical community instead of what their factories were previously tooled up to do. We bless delivery truck drivers, mail sorters and postal service folks. For all of these folks adjusting to new ways to deal with customers and new ways to sanitize and keep the work place safe, we ask for Your protection God and your care for them as they feel the newness of the situation they are in and try to work in as normal a fashion as possible.
As we think about all these new normal things we want to give you thanks that life with you God, is the best new normal there could be. You made us new people. You brought us into loving relationship with you. What a gift. What a transformation of previously meaningless lives to lives now that are filled with purpose and hope. Help us to be faithful even during this new season to hear what You are saying to us so we can do the work that you’ve prepared for each of us to do.
Thank you God that there’s no line-up and no waiting to approach you. We don’t have to worry about getting anything bad from you or needing to be protected from You in any way. You are the God who has grace and mercy for us today, whatever we need, whenever we need it. We can come boldly to you. That’s hardly something we do out in the community any more right now but with you we can open the door and come right in and come right up close and personal.
And so today, in this new normal that we are all getting used to, we want to pause for just this moment and say thank you that we belong to You and no social isolation can change that.
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