A Prayer for a Funeral
For the day of goodbye — a prayer of grief, gratitude, and resurrection hope.
Some days need borrowed words more than any others. This is a prayer for a funeral day — before the service, or in the quiet after.
The prayer
Father, we come to you on the hardest kind of day, carrying a grief that fits nowhere. Come and carry it, and us.
Thank you for the life we honour today — for every gift that came to us through them, every memory that will keep arriving unbidden for years. They mattered, and they were yours.
Jesus, you stood at a grave and wept, and then you called the dead to life. Be both of those things for us today — the God who weeps with us, and the resurrection and the life.
Hold everyone who mourns. Keep us gentle with each other, and lift our eyes, when we are able, to the morning when every tear is wiped away. Amen.
Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live:
He that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. Grief and hope can share a pew.
Keep this prayer with you
Save it as a card or phone wallpaper, print it, or share it with someone who needs these words today.
