'The register of pain is too long to bear.'

In Conversation

It is the scale of it that most confounds. As the news of suffering in Zimbabwe tumbles into news of storms and havoc in Burma we then have an earthquake tumbling homes in China; suffering and loss on massive scales.

Creation seems to be reminding us just how fragile we are, how small our efforts to build can be in the face of forces that outmatch us. And then human evil roars into the chaos to build horror upon the already ruins. The register of pain is too long to bear.

All the eternal questions haunt me. Why have you made a good creation that can make earthquakes and cyclones? Why do bad people seem able to gather so much power to them and do such damage? Why don't you just sort some of this out? Can you sort it out, or are you choosing not to? Dear God, I have questions…

In Prayer

It hurts to live and see so much suffering.

We cannot take it all in or bear the glimpse we get of eyes haunted by death. We struggle to understand the forces of evil and the forces of nature pitted against so many.

How long will you put up with this, O God?

How long will you leave us to squander life when life is so hard to get right?

How long will you inflict freedom upon humanity when freedom's body-count is so high?

How long will your silence last?

How long will you bear with us in our grief and sit with us in the dust?

Until Christ returns and all things are made new?

Until then you face a thousand questions and yet do not weary of loving us.

You have shaped creation to be fragile and alive, and living is risky.

Our hurt and anger at the pain are tokens of your image, for surely our passion mirrors something of the depths of your passion.

How much more do you feel the loss of each and every child and woman and man who lies beneath the rubble or floats in the swollen river?

When the soldiers stop food getting through or mobs intimidate the voters it is you who most bears the agony of life being contorted.

Living with us in this mess you never cease to care, and call us into caring more.

You know the risk that freedom brings and risk each moment as you trust in our capacity to choose and learn and turn from selfishness.

Your Spirit moves for ever over the chaos to tend and nurture the fruits of kindness.

You teach us day upon day the truth of life's fragility and thus life's infinite worth.

You inspire us to care and care again so that we never grow tired of aid's demands and the even greater demands of reshaping creation into your patterns of justice and of peace.

God of all things, forgive and strengthen us that we might serve.

By the Rev Neil Thorogood, Director of Pastoral Studies, Westminster College, Cambridge

Father God

In times of devastation and massive loss of life, we question why this fragile earth takes away the lives of mothers, fathers, sisters and brothers so violently.

We struggle to comprehend the acts of nature that can bring one country glorious sunshine and another a fatal cyclone, that can demolish schools and homes within seconds and leave millions asking 'why me?'.

We pray for the people of Burma and China: for those who have died, for those who are injured, for those who survived, and for those helping those in need.

We ask for your comforting presence to be with those who mourn; we ask for your healing presence for those who are ill; we ask for your resilient presence to be with those who are assisting and for those who are faced with starting again.

We ask for your peace to be with all people in Burma and China.

In the name of your son, Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord,

Amen.

Psalm 23

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want.

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul. He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

(NIV)

Prayer by Andy Jackson, Editor, www.surefish.co.uk

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