[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 86 (Thursday, June 30, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Richard C. Halverson, D.D., offered the 
following prayer:
  Let us pray:
  Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall 
cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.--Genesis 2:24.
  Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and 
gave himself for it * * *.--Ephesians 5:25.
  Eternal God of infinite love, perfect and just in all Thy ways, Thou 
knowest the hurt and the anger that weighs so heavily on the hearts of 
the many women who have had to endure, silently, the indignities, the 
agonies, the pain visited upon them by a brutal husband or lover. Thou 
knowest those who have been violated and humiliated. Thou knowest the 
children, every day abused by the cruelty of brutal men.
  All this evil which has, so smugly, been ignored or minimized by 
family, friends, justice systems and even churches, has finally been 
brought to light by the national, hourly press and media coverage of 
the O.J. Simpson affair.
  Gracious, righteous Lord, we ask that Thou will make Thy presence 
felt by all the victims, known and unknown, who have suffered for so 
long in their silent desperation. Forgive all of us who have ignored 
this suffering and may have contributed to it by our indifference.
  Mighty God, bring healing to our Nation and to all of us who seem so 
blind and deaf to so much agony.
  We pray in the name of the Great Physician. Amen.

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