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A2J Phoenix.org

Nazis Murdered Her Parents.                                    Now, her close friend is a Nazi's daughter.

1/27/2021

4 Comments

 
by Amber Hunter Jesse
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Hanna (left) and Verena (right) at the Judische Friedhof in Gemünd | Photo by Ryan Thurman
​I have to tell you about my friend, Hanna Zack Miley. She’s petite with short, snow-white hair and eyes that emanate light. Her small frame contains an enormous soul. 

Hanna’s beautifully written memoir, entitled A Garland for Ashes¹, tells one of the most important stories I’ve ever encountered, and it is the primary source material for this article. 

In 2013, I had the privilege of joining Hanna on a trip to her hometown in Gemünd, Germany. We walked together to the Jewish Cemetery on the edge of town and came to a memorial stone with her parents' names engraved upon it.

Hitler’s Nazi Regime murdered Markus and Amelie Zack in 1942. 

Hanna was a baby when Hitler rose to power in Germany. He despised Jews and fueled nationwide hatred against them.

Still, Hanna’s earliest memories are warm.
Her parents showered their only child with affection. She recalls her mama’s tender expressions and her skillful hands knitting Hanna a dirndl dress with fluffy pom-poms. She remembers sitting close to her papa, cracking matzo pieces into coffee cups, and walking hand-in-hand with him down a cobblestone street to their synagogue.
Hanna's mother and father | Photo used with Hanna's Permission
Hanna in her dirndl dress | Photo used with Hanna's permission
By the time she was six, Nazis were launching violent attacks against Jews in Germany. On the terrifying night of November 9th, 1938, Hanna was most likely lying between her parents in bed. Rioters burst into her father’s shed and stole his antiques. On that Night-of-Broken-Glass (Kristallnacht²), Nazi mobs destroyed thousands of Jewish properties, including homes, businesses, cemeteries, and synagogues. 

Markus and Amalie knew they needed to act fast to protect their little Hannelore.

Great Britain was among the only countries willing to allow Jewish children to enter as refugees³. In desperation, Hanna’s parents secured a ticket for her departure. As they took her to Cologne’s train station, they told her she would be going on a nice trip. They helped their little daughter up the rail car steps. When Hanna turned to wave goodbye, she was shocked to see her parents’ eyes full of tears. She knew then that it would not be a “nice trip.” Her parents had hung a cardboard label around her neck. It identified her as number 8,814 of 10,000 Jewish children rescued on the Kindertransport.⁴

Hanna’s parents had saved her life.
Hanna's Identification Card at Köln Hauptbahnhof | Photo by Hanna Miley
Hanna's Visa | Photo used with Hanna's permission

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Hanna Zack Miley | Photo by Ryan Thurman
Hanna is now in her late 80’s.
​She embodies wholeness and peace. 

​
It wasn’t always this way. 

Seven-year-old Hanna sobbed in bed on her first night in England. The young family who had taken her in found that they couldn’t cope with her presence and wanted her to be sent elsewhere. Authorities placed her with an older couple who asked to be called Auntie and Uncle.
​
I remember hearing Hanna share about the day Adolph Hitler’s photograph appeared in the morning newspaper. She took a pair of scissors and stabbed his face repeatedly. 
Hanna spent a significant portion of her life with the particularly searing anguish of one whose homeland, language, and parents had been ripped away. 

She knew that her parents were gone but did not know the details surrounding their death. As a child and young adult, she tried to manage her trauma by suppressing her memories and fiercely guarding her heart. When painful realities did surface, she was crushed under impossibly heavy burdens. Hanna despaired about all she had lost and the feeling that her parents had abandoned her. She hated Hitler’s Nazis and the German people who were complicit in their atrocities.
When Hanna was a young woman teaching in the English countryside, she heard that an American preacher named Billy Graham would be holding an event nearby. Although initially cautious, her curiosity compelled her to attend. As she sat in an old wooden pew, carefully listening to Graham’s message, it was as if he was speaking directly to her. Hanna’s heart was unlocked and opened.

​She describes it this way:
I saw Jesus, hanging dead on the cross, and then, in one luminous moment, I knew he was gloriously alive. I felt his love for me, and I could look with candor at the chaos within my soul... From my soul’s depth, I gave him my shame, my wrongness, my sin, my responses to the evil done to me. I saw him take that unbearably heavy load from me, and I began to understand the meaning and purpose of His death. I experienced a lightness of being.⁵
From that point forward, Hanna has experienced a gradual yet profound process
​of restoration. 
​

In her 70’s, she sensed it was time to confront her painful history. She was determined to discover what happened to her parents, and she searched diligently for clues. 

Hanna embarked on a pilgrimage to retrace her parents' steps.

Accompanied by her devoted husband George and eight close friends, Hanna followed Markus and Amelie’s footprints — from their home in Germany to the forest in Poland where Nazis viciously ended
​their lives.
​
Hanna’s fellowship of friends was there each step of the way, both to support and to mourn.
One of those supportive friends was Verena Lang. 
Verena is the daughter of a high ranking Nazi. After WWII ended, a U.S. jury convicted her father of war crimes and sent him to prison for two and a half years. Verena was ashamed that her father, who she dearly loved, was considered a criminal. She made every effort to hide it. Verena’s father died when she was 18, and she dropped into a dark pit of depression.
​
Although Verena didn’t believe in God, she decided to join a church choir because she loved to sing. She remembers the day her life began to change.

While she was singing the words “do this in remembrance of me,” it was as if God shot an arrow into her heart.⁶
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Verena Lang at the Jewish Cemetery in Gemünd | Photo by Ryan Thurman
Verena embarked on a journey similar to Hanna’s, to face the past and participate in the process of healing. As a historian and a follower of Jesus, Verena’s life became a School of Forgiveness. She learned to grieve the painful parts of her story and practice repentance for evil acts throughout her family line. 

She wrestled for a decade before deciding to forgive her father.⁷

​Verena and Hanna have both come to understand that forgiveness in no way minimizes evil. Instead, forgiveness releases the horrible burden of judgment into the hands of God, the Creator, who is both perfectly just and merciful. Even further, forgiveness allows a person to become so free that they’re able to follow this other-worldly command given by Jesus, “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”⁸

Hanna and her husband George traveled from Phoenix, Arizona, to her hometown of Gemünd, Germany.

What would forgiveness look like in the places of her deepest pain?

Could healing balm be applied to these old and gaping wounds?

Hanna felt aching anticipation as she turned onto the street where she once lived with her mama and papa. The apple tree from her childhood still raised its branches heavenward in the former Zack family courtyard. She placed two white roses under that tree, one for each of her parents.

From there, Hanna visited the playground where she played as a child. She prayed for the children who had once surrounded and mocked her and other Jewish children with anti-Semitic songs. 
​
Hanna and her traveling companions returned to the train station, where her parents had cried as they sent her away. Hanna describes the moment she stepped onto the railway platform.
I was transported back to the parting with my parents. Our separation was like a carefully sewn garment being torn into two parts. I heard again the sound of the ripping. I saw each piece left with raw, uneven edges and broken threads floating in the air.⁹
What happened after that day? 

​Hanna’s meticulous research uncovered the distressing details of her parents’ final months and days.
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Hanna and her traveling companions praying in a cattle car in Łódź, Poland | Photo by Ryan Thurman
After being branded with yellow stars, stripped of their business, and driven from their home, Markus and Amalie were forced onto a train to a Jewish ghetto in Łódź, Poland. Its inhabitants were unaware that this placement was an initial step toward their extermination. Hanna’s parents endured six months of hunger and fear in the overcrowded ghetto, where thousands were dying from disease and starvation.
​
Considered less than human, Markus and Amelie were among those stuffed like sardines into a cattle car and sent to the Chelmno death camp.¹⁰
Now, the moment had come for Hanna to join her parents in Chelmno. Verena knelt with Hanna at the locked entrance to that camp. Hanna gripped the iron bars as she peered through to the place where her mama and papa were stripped of their clothing and herded with forty others into a large gray truck. Nazi police rerouted the exhaust pipe to pump carbon monoxide into that mobile gas chamber, poisoning and suffocating them to death. Their lifeless bodies were driven into the forest. Nazis forced Jewish prisoners to pile them into a mass grave. Later, their bodies were dug up and burned.
At that moment, by the gate, Verena began to weep on behalf of her father, a Nazi. Tears of anguish and repentance spilled out from the depths of her soul. 

In that holy moment, Hanna spoke these words:
​
“Verena, the Lord has heard your tears and confession, and he has forgiven you.”¹¹
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Hanna, Verena, and their supportive friends at the Chelmno Gate | Photo by Ryan Thurman

Hanna’s pilgrimage required yet another monumental step. 

On the anniversary of her parents’ death, Hanna entered the Rzuchowski Forest, where Nazis had incinerated their bodies.

Hanna, her husband George, her friend Verena and seven more friends created a Minyan — the ten adults required in Jewish tradition to pray publicly at a burial service. On that rainy day, they lit two flickering memorial candles. Upon a make-shift altar surrounded by a garland of white and pink blossoms, Hanna placed a letter that began with these words:
My beloved Mutti und Vati, Here is Hannelore, the little girl you sent away to save her life.¹²
Along with the letter, she added a Crucifix of Jesus. He was wearing a yellow star. 

Hanna and her companions encircled the altar and recited a Jewish Yizkor, a prayer of remembrance for family members who have died.
​
When Hanna was a child, she had interpreted being sent away by her parents as complete abandonment. 

Now, in the forest outside Chelmno, as the rain fell — and as Heaven wept —  Hanna could feel just how much her parents loved her. 
Altar in the Rzuchowski Forest | Photo by Ryan Thurman
Hanna's husband George leading the burial service | Photo by Ryan Thurman
These golden threads of forgiveness, healing, and hope have continued to weave throughout Hanna’s life.

In 2013, the citizens of Gemünd invited Hanna, as a guest of honor, to the town’s 800th anniversary. They wanted to publicly honor the Jews who had been driven from their village and acknowledge the horrors committed against them. Brass paving stones, called Stolpersteine¹³, were laid in front of Hanna’s childhood home.

​Etched upon them are the words, “Here lived” Markus and Amelie Zack, “Died May 3, 1942, Chelmno.”
Stolpersteine by German artist Gunter Demnig | Photo by Ryan Thurman
Hanna kneeling at the Stolpersteine in front of the former Zack family home | Photos by Ryan Thurman
Two years later, Hanna read passages from her book for the citizens of Bonn, Germany —  the city where there had been trials to convict the Nazis at Chelmno for their war crimes. When she had finished reading, a man came to the microphone and told Hanna that his grandfather was a Nazi Officer at Chelmno when her parents were there.
​
Through his tears, he said, “I don’t know what to say. I can only stand here and ask for forgiveness.”¹⁴


Hanna embraced him with heartfelt forgiveness and love. 

​The man’s name was Markus, the same as her father. 

I often reflect on the time I spent with Hanna and our community of friends at the small Jewish Cemetery in Gemünd. On that crisp November evening, we quietly gazed at the memorial stone Hanna had erected for her parents. 

Markus and Amelie Zack were among an estimated six million Jews who were murdered in the Holocaust.¹⁵
​
Under their names and dates are these words: 
You are precious in my eyes and honored, and I love you.¹⁶
Markus & Amelie's Memorial Stone
Hanna and Verena at the Jewish Cemetery in Gemünd
George with Hanna at the Jewish Cemetery in Gemünd | Photos by Ryan Thurman

​Learn more about Hanna:
A Garland for Ashes
Hanna's Instagram
A Video Interview
Quellen: Sources for Restoration
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Hanna's memoir in both English and German

References:

1. A Garland for Ashes: World War II, the Holocaust,
and One Jewish Survivor’s Long Journey to Forgiveness written by Hanna Miley

2. Kristallnacht | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

3. Refugees | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

4. Kindertransport | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

5. A Garland for Ashes | Chapter 11 | By Hanna Miley

6. Verena and Hanna's Story of Reconciliation | Wittenberg 2017 | Youtube.com

7. Verena's Story | www.wittenberg2017.us

8. Luke 6:27-28 | English Standard Version Bible

9. A Garland for Ashes | Chapter 12 | By Hanna Miley

10. Chelmno | United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

11. A Garland for Ashes | Chapter 19 | By Hanna Miley

12. A Garland for Ashes | Chapter 21 | By Hanna Miley

13. Stolpersteine | Artist Gunter Demnig

14. Maturing Toward Wholeness in the Inner Life | Chapter 1 | By George Miley

15. Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution |
​United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

16. Isaiah 43:4 | English Standard Version Bible


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Reflection 1:  Justice

6/17/2020

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written by Ryan Thurman
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photo taken:  Woodland Community Garden 2011-2019

What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God
-Micah 6:8

I feel inadequate to write about the theme of justice.  The reality is that all too often I easily settle into my life of privilege and ignore those desperately crying out for justice.  My sins also make me complicit in the creation of, as well as, the continued existence of unjust ideas and systems that dishonor and destroy those made in the image of God. While at times, I have given myself to those who are being crushed under the weight of injustice and have even uprooted myself and gone with the poor in their suffering as Oscar Romero writes, I still have this nagging question,  are we called to more than this?   I think of Bonhoeffer’s statement that, “we are not to simply bandage the wounds of victims beneath the wheels of injustice, we are to drive a spoke into the wheel itself.”  We see Jesus throughout the gospels doing both.  He is caring for and protecting those who are abused and also confronting the oppressors. The woman caught in adultery is a perfect example of Jesus caring for someone who was being degraded, shamed and used by those in power for their oppressive and controlling purposes.  Jesus, rescued her from being stoned to death, forgives her and takes the time to speak hope and truth into her life.  Jesus often confronted leaders who were using their power incorrectly.  They were using it to elevate and protect their positions and self-interests at the expense of the most vulnerable, who they were supposed to be helping.   We can learn to do justice by following Jesus in loving our neighbors, bringing healing into the broken lives and spaces that surround us and by offering the healing balm of truth and reconciliation and by learning to confront evil and injustice in every form and commit to never again look the other way.  

Loving Father, you are the source of steadfast love and faithfulness, in you, righteousness and peace embrace.   Empower us to stand up to the oppressors and abusers and always have the compassion and courage to ‘stand with’ those who suffer injustice.  
​Amen


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A Prayer of lament

1/21/2020

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Opening Prayer

Lord Jesus we believe and trust that you know and feel deeply our tragedies, losses and pain. You bear them all in love, affirming our condition, carrying our sorrows to the end, all the way to the heart of God.”
-A2J Community

​(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

“My God, my God” “Why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from saving me, so far from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry out by day, but you do not answer, by night, but I find no rest. . . . My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death”  “Lord, do not be far from me. . . . Come quickly to help me.
-Psalm 22


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession

Let the water and the blood from Thy wounded side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure, save from wrath and make me pure
-Augustus M. Toplady


(Time of silence for confession of sin)

The Words of Jesus

When Mary reached the place where Jesus was and saw him, she fell at his feet and said, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who had come along with her also weeping, he was deeply moved in spirit and troubled. “Where have you laid him?” he asked.  “Come and see, Lord,” they replied.  Jesus wept.
-John 11:32-35


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

Help me Lord to not live out of selfish ambitions or vain conceit, but in humility esteem others as more important than myself.  Let me not look out only to my own interested, but also to the interests of others.  
-Philippians 2:3-4


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

Triune God we bless you, we confess our faith in you!   We believe that you, God came in Jesus to the place where the pain was greatest, to take it upon yourself. We believe that you God come today, in the Spirit, to the place where the pain is still at its height, to share the groaning of this world in order to bring the world to new life. Come Holy Spirit and dwell within us your people and enable us to stand, in prayer and suffering, at that place of pain and meet you there.  Amen
-A2J Community
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Advent Reflection 2

12/16/2019

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by G.K. Chesterton
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THE HOUSE OF CHRISTMAS

​A child in a foul stable,

Where the beasts feed and foam;
Only where he was homeless
Are you and I at home:
We have hands that fashion and heads that know,
But our hearts we lost—how long ago!
In a place no chart nor ship can show
Under the sky’s dome.


To an open house in the evening
Home shall men come,
To an older place than Eden
And a taller town than Rome.
To the end of the way of the wandering star,
To the things that cannot be and that are,
To the place where God was homeless
And all men are at home
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Advent Reflection

12/9/2019

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by John DelHousaye
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My favorite part of George Frideric Handel’s Messiah comes at the end of scene three in the first part when the chorus thunders, “Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.”
 
At the time of Christ, Jews recited the Trisagion (τρισάγιον) or “thrice-holy” from Isaiah, “Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory,” a practice adopted by the church (see Revelation 4:8). It was a sacred moment: everyone knew there were wondrous angels in God’s throne room, the Seraphim, who were eternally voicing the same confession (Isaiah 6:2-3).
 
Isaiah was given this hopeful vision in a dark time of Israel’s history. The people had lost their way and were facing exile from the Promised Land. God seemed distant. The prophet writes, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple” (6:1 ESV). The claim is shocking because, as the apostle John notes, “No one has ever seen God” (John 1:18). Moses wanted to see God, but could only bear to see an afterglow in the cleft of a rock. But later the apostle cites from the passage of the Trisagion in Isaiah with this disclosure: “Isaiah said these things because he saw his [Christ’s] glory and spoke of him” (John 12:41 ESV). Earlier, he confessed: “We have seen his glory” (John 1:14).
 
Jesus Christ, God the Son, is the image of the invisible God, who sits at the right hand of God the Father. The Holy Spirit enables us to see a little of this reality—what we can bear. And this brings us back to the words of Handel’s Messiah. The entire verse reads:
 
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isaiah 9:6)
 
Someday, we all shall have opportunity to confess this to his face. But Advent is not merely a rehearsal, but an opportunity, even now, to join heaven and earth in adoration of our King.
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Daily Prayer 83

9/26/2019

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View Daily Prayer Guide

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Opening Prayer

How precious are Your thoughts to me, O God!  How vast is the sum of them!  If I should count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand.
-Psalm 139:17


(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

For you O God formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother's womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.  My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.  Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them,  the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
-Psalm 139: 13-16


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession of Sin

O God, you know my foolishness, and my guilt is not hidden from you.  Have mercy
-Psalm 69:5


(Time of silence for confession of sin)

The Words of Jesus

Jesus heard that they had cast the blind man he had healed out, and having found him he said, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered, “And who is he, sir, that I may believe in him?”  Jesus said to him, “You have seen him, and it is he who is speaking to you.”  He said, “Lord, I believe,” and he worshiped him.  Jesus said, “For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind.”  Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains.
-John 9:36-41


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

I will watch in hope for you, O Lord; I will wait for you, the God of my salvation; you will hear me
-Micah 7:7


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

Thanks be to you, my Lord Jesus Christ, for all the benefits which you have given me, for all the pains and insults which you have borne for me.  O most merciful Redeemer, Friend and Brother, may I know you more clearly, love you more dearly, and follow you more nearly, day by day. 
-Richard of Chichester (1197-1253)

Go, sent by the Father into the world to love & serve in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit

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photos taken--    Top:  Strasbourg, France   Bottom:  Wallhausen, Germany
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Daily Prayer 82

9/23/2019

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View Daily Prayer Guide

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Opening Prayer

Who am I?  These lonely questions of mine mock me, whoever I am, You know.  O God, I am thine!
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer (1906-1945)


(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

Why are you cast down, O my soul,  and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.  My soul is cast down within me; Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me?  Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God.
-Psalm 42: 5-6, 11


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession of Sin

Woe to me, for I am undone!  Because I have unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen you, the King, the Lord of hosts.
-Isaiah 6:5


(Time of silence for confession of sin)

The Words of Jesus

Your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad.” So the Jews said to him, “You are not yet fifty years old, and have you seen Abraham?” Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” So they picked up stones to throw at him, but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.
-John 8:56-59


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

Help me Lord to not live out of selfish ambitions or vain conceit, but in humility esteem others as more important than myself.  Let me not look out only to my own interested, but also to the interests of others.  
-Philippians 2:3-4


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you for moving our hearts so that we may know we are your children. Even in the midst of turmoil and evil, fear and pain, you bring us happiness; we can know that you are holding us with your right hand and will finally deliver us from all evil. Let your Spirit be at work everywhere. Give us patience when time is needed in our own hearts and in the hearts of all people, who also belong to you. Continue to strengthen us so that even the heaviest burden does not crush us and we may exult in hope because you right every wrong, to the glory of your name. Amen.
-Christoph Friedrich Blumhardt

Go, sent by the Father into the world to love & serve in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit

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photos taken--    Top:  Pergamon, Turkey   Bottom:  Assisi, Italy
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Daily Prayer 81

9/18/2019

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View Daily Prayer Guide

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Opening Prayer

God our heavenly Father, when the thought of you wakes in our hearts, let its awakening not be like a startled bird that flies about in fear. Instead, let it be like a child waking from sleep with a heavenly smile. 
-Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)


(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither.  In all that he does, he prospers.
-Psalm 1: 1-3


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession of Sin

Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity;  I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. 
-Psalm 32: 1-5


(Time of silence for confession of sin)

The Words of Jesus

Jesus answered, “If I glorify myself, my glory is nothing. It is my Father who glorifies me, of whom you say, ‘He is our God.’  But you have not known him. I know him. If I were to say that I do not know him, I would be a liar like you, but I do know him and I keep his word. 
-John 8: 54-55


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

I love you, Lord because you have heard my voice and my supplications.  Because you turned your ear to me, I will call on you as long as I live
-Psalm 116: 1-2


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

May those without shelter be under your guarding this day 
O Christ may the wandering find places of welcome, 
O Son of the tears of the wounds of the piercings, 
May your cross this day be shielding them. 
-Prayer from Iona Community

Go, sent by the Father into the world to love & serve in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit

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photos taken--Top:  Wallhausen, Germany Bottom:  Athens, Greece
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Daily Prayer 80

9/13/2019

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View Daily Prayer Guide

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Opening Prayer

Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; lead me in your truth and teach me, for you are the God of my salvation, and my hope is in you all day long.
-Psalm 25: 3-5


(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

We praise you Jesus—the One who was made a little lower than the angels—now crowned with glory and honor because you suffered death, so that by the grace of God you might taste death for everyone.  In bringing many of us to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make you—the author of our salvation—perfect through suffering.
-Hebrews 2:9-10


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession of Sin

I praise Thee Lord, for cleansing me from sin.  Fulfill your Word, and make me pure within.  Fill me with fire, where once I burned with shame.  Grant my desire to magnify your Name.
-J. Edwin Orr (1912-1987)


(Time of silence for confession of sin)

The Words of Jesus

I honor my Father, and you dishonor me.  Yet I do not seek my own glory; there is One who seeks it, and he is the judge. Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.”
-John 8:49-51


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

Answer me, O Lord, for your lovingkindness is good; in the abundance of your mercies, turn to me
-Psalm 69:16


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

Let nothing disturb thee,
Nothing affright thee;
All things are passing;
God never changeth;
Patient endurance
Attaineth to all things;
Who God possesseth
In nothing is wanting;
Alone God sufficeth.

-St. Teresa of Avila (1515-1582)

Go, sent by the Father into the world to love & serve in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit

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photos taken--Top:  Eifel Region, Germany Bottom:  Iznik (Nicea), Turkey
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Daily Prayer 79

9/12/2019

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View Daily Prayer Guide

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Opening Prayer

Alone with none but thee, my God, I journey on my way.  What need I fear, when thou art near O king of night and day?  More safe am I within thy hand than if a host did round me stand.
-Columba, Irish abbot and missionary (521-597)


(silent reflection)

Prayer of the Bible

Teach me your way, O Lord, and lead me on a level path because of my enemies.  Give me not up to the will of my adversaries; for false witnesses have risen against me, and they breathe out violence.  I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living  Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!
-Pslam 27: 11-14


(Free expression of praise and thanksgiving to God)

Confession of Sin

What I do may seem right to me and others, But you, Lord know my inner motives and what I am thinking.  
-Proverbs 21:2


(Time of silence for confession of sin)


The Words of Jesus

Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God and I am here. I came not of my own accord, but he sent me. Why do you not understand what I say? It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies
-John 8:42-44


(Think deeply on these life-giving words of Jesus)

Prayer for Ourselves and Others

Far be it from me that I should sin against You, O Lord, by ceasing to pray for others
​
-I Samuel 12:23


(Time to bring before God our own needs and the needs of others)

Closing Prayer

Lord Jesus Christ, grant that as your body, we might we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ
-Ephesians 4: 13-15

Go, sent by the Father into the world to love & serve in the name of Jesus, empowered by the Holy Spirit

Picture

photos taken--Top:  Meteora, Greece Bottom:  Wittenberg, Germany
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