[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 8]
[Senate]
[Page 11232]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain, the Reverend Dr. Thomas K. Tewell, the Fifth 
Avenue Presbyterian Church, New York, NY, offered the following prayer:
  Will you pray with me.
  Our Lord and our God, in this era of violence and moral confusion, we 
ask Your richest blessings to be poured out on the United States of 
America. We thank You for the destiny that You have given to us to be a 
living illustration of the righteousness and justice that You desire 
for all nations. Today we pray for the women and men in the United 
States Senate who work for long hours fulfilling their enormous 
responsibilities. They sometimes expend an incredible amount of energy 
on an issue, only to see it voted down. So often the good things they 
try to do meet with stubborn resistance. Their physical stress is 
aggravated as emotions are stretched and strained in this pressure 
cooker of responsibility.
  Gracious God of love, protect the Senators from going beyond their 
human limitations where burnout brings discouragement. Make them wise 
in their responsibilities to their families, themselves, and most of 
all to You. Grant them the humility to remember their need for Sabbath 
rest, daily relaxation, and spiritual renewal. Most of all, O God, 
teach the Members of the Senate and all leaders in our Nation to wait 
upon You and thus renew their strength. May we put You first in our 
lives by remembering the words of the prophet Isaiah who said, ``They 
that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up 
with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they shall 
walk and not faint.'' We pray in the strong name of the One who was 
never in a hurry, yet finished the work He came to do. Amen.

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