Family Prayer

First Family,
As my family and I settled into our home in Northern Virginia, we gathered and prayed the following prayer in our living room together.

I am sharing it with you as an invitation for you to gather with your loved ones and pray together in your home. When did you last pray as a family outside of mealtime?

Would you consider praying this prayer together? Whether you have lived in your home for less than a year or have been blessed to be settled for many years in one location, I hope this prayer will strengthen your family.

Heavenly Father, We thank you for this home, O Lord, for the shelter it will provide, for the moments of life that will be shared within it.  We thank you for this our home and we welcome you here.  Dwell with us in this place, O Lord.  Dwell among us in these spaces, in these rooms. Be present at this table as we eat together. Be present as we rise in the morning and lie down at night. Be present in our work here. Be present in our play.  May your Spirit inhabit this home, making of it a sanctuary where hearts and lives are knit together, where bonds of love are strengthened, where mercy is learned and practiced.  May this our home be a harbor of anchorage and refuge and a haven from which we journey forth to do your work in your world. May it be a garden of nourishment in which our roots go deep that we might bear fruit for the nourishing of others.  May this our home be a place of knowing and of being known, a place of shared tears and laughter; a place where forgiveness is easily asked and grated, and wounds are quickly healed; a place of meaningful conversation, of words not left unsaid; a place of joining, of becoming, of creating, and reflecting; a place where our diverse gifts are named and appreciated, where we learn to serve one another and to serve our neighbors as well; a place where our stories are forever twined by true affections.  Grant also, O Lord, that our days lived gratefully within these temporary walls, enjoying these momentary fellowships, would serve to awaken within us a restless longing for our truer home.  Incline our hearts ever toward the glories of that better city built by you, O God – a city whose blessings are never-ending and whose fellowships are eternally unbroken.
 
Amen

*This prayer is taken from Every Moment Holy by Douglas Kaine McKelvey