Dear Lord, I am thinking of the wonders and the horrors we are seeing these few short days in Haiti. Short in terms of the wide world history, very LONG if you are trapped alive in the rubble.

Lord, continue to teach us Your everlasting greatness and relieve those who remain alive for the purpose of showing Your glory. You raise up those You will and You are so much more MERCIFUL than we are, so much more MERCIFUL than we imagine You to be . . .

Refresh all those who work in the rubble in Haiti and enable them to complete the work of saving those upon whom Your favor rests.

Spread Your grace and protection over the population and suppress the spread of violence and disease. Be pleased to expedite the formation of roads that will serve effectively to move supplies and transport patients. Remember the outliers and help us to remember and relieve them, too.

Let the healing begin, Lord . . .

If you remembered our sins and shortcomings against us, Lord, no mere mortal would ever stand before You, but You are gracious and forgiving because that is Your nature.

Open our hearts and minds to comprehend Your messages in all of this. Deliver us from evil and from the callus of lazy indifference that allows us to accept a verdict of 'unknowable' writ large upon this disaster.

Touch us with repentance, Lord, of our godless American sense of entitlement. We behave as though we have a DIVINE RIGHT to food and water and healthcare ourselves, yet we barely give a passing thought to those who have to suffer to get even the least of these.

Change us, Lord, in our willingness and our awareness. Lead us in Your way of honest, open-handed mercy. Convince us, Lord, that You care less what name we use to call upon You and so much more that we make the call in simple awareness that we need to be saved . . .