Comment by Harborough churches: Father’s Day brought many different emotions for each person

Viewpoint by By the Revd Christopher Brown, pastor of Market Harborough Baptist Church

Sunday June 20 was Father’s Day, which brings many different emotions for each person – some really good, some really bad, and much in between. I offer these thoughts in the form of prayers in the hope that they might be helpful and meaningful.

Those who have lost children

Compassionate God, we pray for those fathers who have lost children. You know what it is to lose a child, when your only Son Jesus died on the cross. You know the grief, the pain and the suffering. And so we pray for your deep compassion and tender loving care to surround these fathers today.

May you comfort them in their grief and pain, and may you bring light into the darkness and lead them in the ways of hope.

Those who have lost fathers

Loving God, we pray for those who have lost fathers. We pray for those who feel emptiness where there was once so much fullness, who are pierced with the pain of living life without their dad. We pray for your deep compassion and tender loving care to surround them. May you help them to remember those treasured times spent together, and bless them with a heart of thankfulness and the knowledge of your love.

Those with strained relationships

God of peace, we pray for those fathers and children who have strained relationships, where there is tension, discord and heartache. May your Holy Spirit soften hearts and awaken a desire to reach out to each other, to talk, to forgive, to heal. May you bring harmony and peace into these relationships, and bring about new beginnings.

Those yearning to be fathers

Gracious God, we pray for those would love to be fathers but, for whatever reason, cannot be at this time. Would you meet them in their deep desire, in their frustration and pain. May you surround them with your care and compassion, enfolding them in your loving kindness, and where it is possible, may you answer their prayers and bless them with children. But where it is not, may you pour out your peace and love upon them, and bless them with fresh vision and new desires that will enable them to live an abundant life of fullness and joy.

Those who are thankful

God of goodness, those of us who have been blessed with good relationships with our fathers – our biological fathers, adoption fathers, fostering fathers, surrogate fathers, spiritual fathers – thank you for them and for the rich blessing they are to us. We thank you for their love, care and support, for their sacrifice, selflessness, and for being there for us. We thank you for all the ways in which they have displayed your love for us in who they are and what they do. Bless them, we pray, with your rich and abundant blessing, and may they know your love and our love for them.

By the Revd Christopher Brown, pastor of Market Harborough Baptist Church