I couldn’t sleep. Too many fears and tears for such a broken world.
So I wrote this as a prayer, to the tune Kings Lynn (aka O God of earth and altar) – though any suitable sombre 7676D tune would work..
As with all my hymns, please do just help yourself: share, sing, print, whatever’s helpful.
O God of all salvation
In this, our darkest hour,
Look down at your creation
With pity and with power.
In all the pain we’re seeing,
For parent, partner, friend,
We’ll cling with all our being
To love that cannot end.
O God, your loving passion
Is deeper than our pain,
Look down, and in compassion
Bring us to life again.
When we are found despairing,
When all seems lost to sin,
We’ll hear your voice declaring
That love alone will win.
O God, when hate grows stronger,
With fear to pave its way,
The cry, ‘Lord, how much longer?’
With broken hearts we pray.
In all that is dismaying
In humankind’s freewill,
We’ll join our voices, praying
That love will triumph still.
O God, whose love will never
Be silenced, stalled or stilled,
Set us to work wherever
There’re bridges to rebuild.
We’ll take our life’s vocation
To make, like heav’n above,
In this and every nation
A kingdom built on love.
(c) Ally Barrett 2016
reverendally.org 
Beautiful hymn with a great message. I did wonder whether in the last verse, “Set us to work wherever
There’s bridges to rebuild ” , should be “there are bridges “, though. It’s not quite grammatical as it stands. Or could it be “Set us to work wherever/ are bridges to rebuild ” , since that scans better? Sorry to be nit-picks, but it is such a fine hymn, and I would love to use it in my congregation, if that is OK.
Yep, it’s ungrammatical, but as it scans better and the contraction is widely used in spoken English, I thought I might get away with it… You’re more than welcome to use it, and I hope it helps your congregation to pray through the events of the past week (I’ll keep pondering other solutions to the grammar issue…!)
Thanks for your quick response. I realised it was the scansion that was the problem (I write myself from time to time, and I know how irritating it is when what you want to say won’t quite fit…) How about ” there’s a bridge to be rebuilt”?
I’ll keep thinking… 🙂
“Set us to work wherever
A bridge we can rebuild”
scans, but is awkward…
“Set us to work wherever
Your bridges we can build”
Maybe?
Sorry for my own inconsistent for.atting, poating from my phone is awkward.
These are all good suggestions – unfortunately I think I’ve probably left it too late to do anything about it now – the hymn is kind of out there and doing its own thing!
Thank you for sharing this Ally. We will be using it in the Chase Benefice tomorrow.
Thank you – hope it helps.