December Series: A Prayer for PURIFICATION

“Our vision is so limited we can hardly imagine a love that does not show itself in protection from suffering.... The love of God did not protect His own Son.... He will not necessarily protect us - not from anything it takes to make us like His Son. A lot of hammering and chiseling and purifying by fire will have to go into the process.”
― Elisabeth Elliot


Mmmm. That quote is just so beautiful to me.

I'm going to be praying about something really tough today. I feel like it's tough because I don't want it to seem like I believe that these people are filthy, or damaged, or disgusting. On the contrary, I do not fault them for their situation, nor do I condemn them to a life of brokenness or minimizedness (is that a word?) for what they have been forced to do.

The purification that I am praying for is for themselves. How awful would it feel to be ravaged day after day after day by someone you may or may not know in ways you do not want. I would feel filthy, I can only imagine the depths of the wound of filth that they feel.

Pray with me today for their own peace of mind?



Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ...
1 Peter 3:21

Father God, Healer and Purifier,

we call to you today for purifying. Not for ourselves this time, but for our brothers and sisters that are trapped in a life of grotesque acts. Jesus, I can only begin to imagine how filthy they must feel.

Father, we know that it is not their fault, that you do not consider them filthy or soiled. Jesus, help them to feel your purifying love. Help them to know your purification and your perfect wholeness.

Wash over them a flood of protection to their sanity, their bodies and their confidence. Help them to know for themselves that they are worth so much more, that they are not beyond cleansing and wholeness.

Restore to them what has been stripped away and carelessly taken from them. Give them their dignity, their wholeness, and their pureness.

God, we know that you can do all things, and we ask that you intervene on their behalf today. Move in your mighty ways to free them from all of the mental, emotional, physical bonds that they are trapped in and cleans them of all of their broken thoughts and feelings.

We know you love them and our hearts go out to them with yours.

Join me again tomorrow for our third to last prayer for the month of December.