A Prayer for World AIDS Day

December 1^st is World AIDS Day. With all the problems in the world, I don't hear much of anything about HIV/AIDS. Here are a few very good reasons to pay attention to this epidemic.

• 30.8 million adults and 2.5 million children. That is the estimated number of people throughout the world who were living with HIV/AIDS at the end of 2009.
  
• Over 67% of those living with HIV/AIDS live in Sub-Saharan Africa. That's 22.5 million people.
  
• Last year, an estimated 1.8 million people died from AIDS and the total number of children orphaned by AIDS (ages 0-17) by the end of 2009 was 16.6 million.
  
• An estimated 2.6 million people became infected with HIV in 2009.
  

To learn more, go to Avert.org.

In light of all of this, I thought I'd share a prayer today. I found this one on the Huffington Post, along with 14 other prayers and poems.

God who blessed our ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca, Leah and Rachel, be with all of those who struggle with AIDS, whose health is impaired by this illness and whose lives have been placed in jeopardy. Give them courage and strength to face their illness and hope for a cure that will embrace them in life.

May your healing presence remain with those who have contracted HIV. Through your caring and the wisdom You have imparted to human healers they have been enabled to succeed in their struggle with their disease. Keep them on the path of health and life.

Be with those who care for people with AIDS and attend to their needs. Bless them with strength and compassion as they labor to ease the lives of those who look to them for comfort and well-being. Let them know the value of their labors, and assist them in the noble work.

Share your wisdom with those searching for an ultimate cure for this disease. Bestow your healing knowledge upon them and reward their efforts with fulfillment.

Bless all of us with compassion and understanding that we may see all those afflicted as You see them: not as recipients of some sort of retribution, but as worthy objects of our concern and love.

May the day come speedily when this scourge too, like so many before it, will not afflict Your children and all of us are liberated from the shadow of its terror.

Amen.

(by Mark Israel and Dan Polish)