[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 22]
[Senate]
[Page 30455]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 prayer

  The guest Chaplain offered the following prayer:
  Gracious God, we bow before You as we open these proceedings asking 
for the provision of Your wisdom and counsel. You have blessed us in 
marvelous ways, and we thank You for this great country--for the 
privilege of living and serving in this land. As a result, may we be 
mindful that ``to those who have been given much, much will be 
required.''
  I also ask Your blessings today upon these men and women who serve as 
our Senators. It is lonely and often windy where they live. The 
expectations are impossible to meet, problems too vast to completely 
overcome, requests for action endless, and opportunities to be loved 
far too infrequent. No one knows what it is like to walk the road which 
they walk. No one knows the personal sacrifices they have made. No one 
knows the burdens they carry. But You do, and I ask that You might come 
up underneath them on that road and carry those burdens with them. Let 
them know of Your enduring presence and the counsel of Your great 
wisdom. May these men and women--those viewed by many as the powerful 
of the Earth--yield to Your great power that they might serve humbly, 
faithfully, and effectively on behalf of the people of this Nation.
  Bless us, we pray, in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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