Pray for Nigeria

Last night I read about this tragedy in Nigeria. It's the kind of thing you can't quite get your mind around. It's the kind of thing you don't want to get your mind around. Possibly two thousand people murdered in one town. People running for their lives. Too many bodies to count. Children and parents being lost from one another in the chaos, with no guarantee that they will ever be able to find one another. Unspeakable tragedy that hits a little too close to home.

You see, Nigeria isn't just a distant place to me. These images, things I saw six short years ago, are still fresh in my mind. And I think, if a few circumstances were changed it could be me, my children, my town. Lord, have mercy.

O Lord Christ, whose death for sinners was a death of suffering, look in Thy divine compassion upon all those who, at this hour in which we pray, in prisons and in all places where there is fighting, hatred and bitterness, are enduring torment at the hands of their fellow men. All extremities of pain are known to you, Lord; may the upholding of your presence be made known to them. If they have ever heard your name, may they now remember it; if it is strange to them let them not be strangers to your courage and your peace. Lord, we know that you who know all, and love all, and have suffered all, have had each of them in your heart from all eternity; yet still we dare to pray for them, knowing that your mercy will accept our prayer and your love use it in the ways that are known to you alone.
--from A Diary of Prayer, compiled by Elizabeth Goudge