Prayer for Victory over a Virus

How does one conquer a pandemic?
It’s difficult; it’s so systemic,
Everywhere you look, people in masks,
And if not, “Why?” Someone asks.
While we battle a novel disease,
Wishing it would depart, please,
While we fend it off, staying apart,
Washing our hands, doing our part
By staying home but to run or shop.
Now hope tantalizes the nation
With a promise of vaccination
Whose date slips farther away
While new strains appear each day.

Navigating this most uncertain path
Pushes me at times to the edge of wrath.
But as I teeter on the edge of anger’s chasm,
Counteracting emotion evokes a spasm,
A glimmer of reason to keep pressing on,
To stride toward the light before it’s gone.
I run to strengthen my body’s resilience,
To build strength, to increase resistance
To viruses and bacteria, to fend off fatigue
And renew energy like I’m in the Justice League.

I sing while I run – praises to the Creator God
Who vigilant, loving, is my rock as weary, I plod.
I pray, too, to the God who cures from plague,
Who purges also those who rebel, and I beg:

Lord of justice and of faithful love,
Whose Spirit descends from above
To dwell within those who trust and obey,
To you I cry, in you I hope, when I pray.
Half a million have died in our nation alone,
Falling prey to a virus at whom some made fun
And denied its power to cripple, to kill
Until stricken by it, they gasped, then lay still.
Its spread reminds us over how little we have control,
Whether fearing or denying, we see the increase of its toll.
Masks, washing hands, vaccines slow its spread,
But some, craving freedom, would rather be dead
Than discipline themselves and show concern.
Instead they rebel and scoff at those who govern.

“Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ,”
Wrote an apostle, but submission seems like a heist
Of self-determination, and insult to humanity.

Teach us to love truth and to discern
Whom to trust, even when taciturn.
In the midst of pandemic, denied in confusion,
Reveal our way to healing, to peaceful fusion
Of societies and cultures bonded together
In health and prosperity, tied by a tether
Of resolve to do to others what to us
We would they would do, without fuss.

If partial victory over this virus is all we achieve,
Teach us once more to love, to trust, to believe
That we can unite to fight a common foe
When you, our God, we faithfully follow.