[Page H1343]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 PRAYER

  The Chaplain, the Reverend Margaret Grun Kibben, offered the 
following prayer:
  Call us back to You, O Lord. Receive us once again from the wide and 
scattered places that our own choices have led us. Take us up into Your 
merciful embrace and remind us that You have never forsaken us and 
never will.
  Then give us new and undivided hearts. Grant us a new spirit, a 
spirit renewed by Your forgiveness and recreated by the power of Your 
own Holy Spirit.
  Remove from us our hearts of stone, our stubbornness and obstinance, 
our inclination to dig in our heels and hold on to the reins rather 
than yield to Your leading.
  Give us instead hearts of integrity and tenderness, that we would 
obey Your commands and live lives in steadfast service to the people 
whose welfare You have entrusted to us.
  Unto Your grace plan, we commend this day. Into Your keeping, we 
offer our best efforts, and in Your merciful name, we pray.
  Amen.

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