A pastoral friend shared this liturgy. I love the liturgy because they help me put my fear and needs in words I normally wouldn’t be able to come up with on my own. I’ll selfishly admit I prayed for my surgeon and his team to have a great and restful night of sleep. Last night I found out because of the hospital’s COVID protocol, my kids can’t visit me after surgery. I had doubts their mother would actually bring them, but now I know for sure I won’t see any family or loved ones when I wake up.”

INTERCESSORS: You designed
our bodies, O Lord,
with a wondrous capacity for
regeneration and healing.
You give wisdom and knowledge
and skill to those who by long
training in their professions learn to
diagnose and treat ailments of the body.
And you, by your Spirit, sometimes
effect miracles of healing that even
the most skilled of practitioners
cannot duplicate.

PATIENT: Today, as I submit myself to
this procedure, I ask, O Lord, that by
all means your care toward me would
be manifest, for I am utterly dependent
upon you. Give to my body immunity and
vitality that I might recover quickly. Give me
strength and health to resist complications.
Give to my medical providers wisdom,
skill, and insight. And by your Spirit,
transcend even what body and medicine
at their best might do. Where it is needed,
bring the healing of your own touch
to bear in my mortal frame.

Be merciful, O God.
Show your goodness to me, and to those
who share my concern. Be now my physician,
my mender, my healer. Even in the midst
of this procedure, let me rest in you.

As I approach this procedure
I acknowledge my own fears at the possibility
of outcomes I cannot control.

O God unshaken by any circumstance,
be now my rock and my refuge.

Still my racing thoughts.
Speak peace to this gale-storm of
my insecurities. In the midst of
my concerns, give me grace
to receive without bitterness
the presence and support of friends
who, seeking to ease fears they cannot
understand, might utter unhelpful things.

Give me also grace to trust,
to rest my trepidations in you,
for your purposes and your presence
transcend all possible outcomes.
Whether the end result of this procedure
brings news that is good, bad, or
uncertain, nothing that is essential or
eternal will have changed;
My great hope is secure.
Let me rest in that.

At the end of this day,
I will still be your child, utterly dependent
on you, utterly loved by you.

At the end of this day,
my life will yet be hidden with Christ,
even as it now is.
I will remain an heir to the promise
that this imperfect, mortal body,
though it faces temporary decline,
will one day be swallowed up
in a glorious immortality

We pray for good outcomes from
this procedure, O Lord.
We ask for good outcomes,
pleading that you would be mindful of
our mortal frailties,
but we know that regardless of the
tidings to come, you are tender
and present and sovereign over
all circumstance,
and what is more,
you love us fiercely and eternally.

Therefore I would trust you to lead
me well along the paths of any
wild and perilous country.
You are my shepherd.
This day will hold no surprises for you.
Let me rest in that.

Amen.