Thank you - to Funeral Homes

Thank you - to Funeral Home Directors and staff

(Number seven in a series of eight prayers.)

God of all creation, we pause to consider the worth of a single human life. No scientist, no matter how clever, can create even a single cell. The simplest creature on this planet is beyond the capacity of any person to create. We acknowledge your creative power, having made the sea, the earth, the sky, and all that is therein.  

So, it is with praise and worship that we recognize your providential care of our lives. You are the author of life. When life comes to an end, we rejoice with the Psalmist, "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints." Psalm 116:15

We rarely stop to thank you for the men and women who take care of details at the end of life. Poets often compare our last days of life to the winter season when the trees have lost their foliage and when nothing grows. 

Funeral homes take on unique responsibilities, preparing a body for the last rites. The staff members at funeral chapels deal daily with death, and they see grief poured out repeatedly. Thank you, Almighty Lord, for the courageous way these people help us through the collective moments of grieving. 

Lord, I lift these fellow human beings up into your care. May they never become calloused in their hearts. Help them to look to Jesus Christ, the Author of Life, the Author and Perfector of our faith. May the words of our resurrected Lord resound in their hearts, over and over. 

"Jesus said to (Martha). I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?" John 10 25,26.