Heavenly Father we come to You with heavy hearts today. Once again we witnessed the destructive and devastating occurrence from living in a fallen sinful world. We grieve with the families that lost their children yesterday in Oxford. We pray for recovery for those who were wounded. We pray that the shooter can be held to justice but that he could find You and redeem his soul. We pray for a community that is in shock and we pray that we can stand with them and weep with them and offer them a little hope.
Holy Spirit lead us to demonstrate why Your kingdom is so important and that salvation is so important. Help us to demonstrate true compassion to the community of Oxford. Help us to find ways to bring hope that this is not the end and that chaos will not rule forever. Help us to be ready to give answers when we can and be honest when we can’t answer things. Help us to demonstrate grace and mercy so that love can win the day.
Holy Spirit help us to pray more and with more faith that You would help us be more aware of the needs of the students in all our communities so that maybe this can be stopped from happening again. Help us to become more aware of peoples hurts, frustrations, and thought processes. Help us to be better listeners and less of speakers. Help us to live a life that demonstrates what it is like to live with the hope of heaven and the daily walk with You.
Holy Spirit help all the churches in the surrounding area come in and offer assistance and support. Holy Spirit help all the churches despite their affiliation join in unity to show Christ and his hope and salvation at this time instead of looking at our differences, let us join together in helping the hurting, supporting and grieving with those who have lost children for all of us are family. Lord direct our hearts into Your love of God and into the patience of Christ. [2 Thess. 3:5] Amen.