[Congressional Record Volume 169, Number 205 (Wednesday, December 13, 2023)]
[House]
[Page H6874]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  Sovereign God, we pause in this brief moment, acutely aware that 
beyond these Chambers are a host of issues that demand urgent attention 
and compete for increasingly limited resources. Outside the silence of 
this place, the drumbeat of need is deafening and resounds across the 
globe.
  We pray to You, O Lord, for our world, for the ever more precarious 
position in which Ukraine finds itself, for the fog of war that has 
descended on Israel and Gaza, and for discord in our own discourse on 
just these two topics alone. Each of these is a crisis in its own 
right, and each is fraught with competing concerns that complicate even 
our best intentions.
  Lord, You are not the author of confusion but of peace. Bring Your 
peace into our world and into this place, that our eyes would be open 
to Your leading, that our ears would hear, among the cacophony of 
voices that clamor to be heard, Your word of truth and justice. Out of 
our mouths may our words sow Your peace and reap a harvest of 
righteousness.
  We give ourselves fully to the work of You, O Lord. May our labor for 
You and for this Nation never be in vain. In Your merciful name we 
pray.
  Amen.

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