[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13708]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

                                 PRAYER

  The Reverend Archie E. Barringer, Veterans Medical Clinic, 
Fayetteville, North Carolina, offered the following prayer:
  Our Father, we thank You for this grand and glorious occasion which 
has brought us together. We thank You for the privilege of living in a 
free country, for the right to assemble to represent the will of our 
people, and to invoke the laws of this great land.
  We ask now for Your divine direction, wisdom, and guidance in all the 
issues that will come before this body of legislators today.
  We know, O God, these are perilous times in which we live. We are 
confronted and bombarded with opposition and evil that threaten our 
very way of life, from within and from without.
  Grant us the courage combined with commitment, pride, tempered by 
humility and dedication driven by determination to be the best, to 
stand in the gap, and to be all You would have us be in order to 
protect, preserve, and defend those freedoms God has intended for all 
mankind. And may we persevere until that day when we shall beat our 
spears into pruning hooks, our swords into plowshares, and study war no 
more.
  For we ask this prayer, O Lord, in Your name. Amen.

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