[Congressional Record Volume 170, Number 127 (Friday, August 2, 2024)]
[House]
[Page H4967]
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:
  We appeal to You this day, O Lord, to open our hearts and souls to 
You, for You hear the needy and You do not despise Your people in 
captivity. As You have promised, You bring release to the prisoners. 
The oppressed You will set free.
  With immense gratitude, we praise You for the freedom finally given 
to Evan Gershkovich, Paul Whelan, Alsu Kurmasheva, and Vladimir Kara-
Murza. Having endured prolonged and unjust imprisonment and 
unimaginable suffering, may they fall into the loving embrace of their 
loved ones and regain the certainty of their freedom and the fullness 
of their lives.
  Sure of Your provision, we pray for all those who remain enslaved to 
the contempt of opposing political ideas, imperiled at the hand of 
unjust rulers, and in fear of the annihilation of whole peoples.
  We pray for those who are subjected to these evils, even as we pray 
for those whose souls are themselves held captive to hate to the extent 
that they cannot and will not see Your light in their darkness.
  May all who remain persecuted and in pain, both the afflicted and the 
offender, come to know of Your salvation, that they, too, would find 
freedom in Your mercy.
  In Your sovereign name we pray.
  Amen.

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