O Lord who gives to everything a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven:^[1] Cf. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8  
a time for war;
a time for peace;
a time for life;
a time for death;
and always time for hope.
We take time now,
as this week starts,
and as–we pray–the fighting in Iraq nears its end,
to honor those who serve,
who fight,
who sacrifice in times of war,
so that the time of peace–of real peace–might be.

We take time now to offer thanks:
for freedoms that are far from free,
for they are bought and paid for
at the cost of lives cut short,
and family dreams that now can never be;
and at the cost of lives
that will be touched and haunted by memories so painful
that most of us give thanks that we will never know,
nor ever fully comprehend.

Lord, who gives to every thing a season,
and a time for every purpose under heaven,^[2] Cf. Ecclesiastes 3:1-8  
we honor those who gave their lives;
and we honor those who still live and serve,
within a world that knows too well the time of war.
And we honor in a special way their families,
those they love and who love them,
for whom the battlefields seem much more close to home.

Give us the faith,
the strength,
the wisdom, too,
to do our part to bring about
the time of peace for which they fought–and fight;
the time of peace for which we pray;
the time of peace, just peace, in which we must keep faith;
the world of peace which we must do our part to build.

And let us say,
Amen.