Prayers for Our City: August 5, 2019 – Family
“Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and He saved them from their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the deep (deathly) darkness and broke apart their bonds apart.” Psalm 107:13-14 AMP
Father God, we want to again lift up the opioid crisis in Huntsville/Madison County and across our state since Alabama still has the highest rate of opioid prescribing in the country. We must start with thanksgiving for answered prayers that the fight against the opioid crisis is trending in the right direction in Madison County. At an April 2019 opioid forum at Bob Jones High School, it was announced that the county’s numbers are improving when it comes to opioid overdoses. Naloxone (drug administered to reverse an overdose) use by paramedics has also dropped around 50 percent, and the number of overdose calls has seen a decline. So we praise You for this improvement, but there’s still a long way to go. [These are the 2017 Madison County statistics that have seen a decrease: a drug-related death every five days, opioid overdose accounting for 75% of the drug-related deaths, HEMSI responded to more than 400 local overdose calls in a six month period.]
Thank You for greater awareness and concern on city/state/national levels. We will continue to pray that the hearts of government leaders, physicians, insurance and pharmaceutical company execs, and patients alike will awaken and cry out “Enough!” Cause this shifting of mindsets as we wrestle with the ethics of pain management both professionally and personally.
Thank You for the watchful eyes of the national Drug Enforcement Administration which tracked the path of every hydrocodone and oxycodone pill sold legally in the US between 2006 and 2012 – tracing movement from manufacturer to distributor to pharmacy. [Of the 76 billion pills distributed across the country during that timeframe, more than 1.7 billion made their way to Alabama. This report says the opioid epidemic in Alabama seemed to disproportionately hit rural areas, and specifically towns in rural, predominantly white counties across north Alabama. Pray for these hardest hit top 10 cities and counties.]
Oh God, may wisdom and the fear of the Lord continue to enlighten leaders at all levels fighting this battle. Thank You that Alabama has made a program available to all our high schools to administer the drug Naloxone to those who train their health care staff to administer the drug to save lives.
We ask that here in Huntsville/Madison County You equip our first responders, ER workers, counselors, rehab workers, law enforcement and those involved in our judicial system who are facing this issue to serve with wise and loving hearts. We speak Your protection and great grace over them. Even as we pray for these, we also ask that we Christians may be Your agents in this battle to resist this evil over Huntsville/Madison County. Teach us to fast and pray, to bind and loose, to push back and deactivate the dark forces that have come to steal, kill and destroy. Help us live to bring others to the One who delivers us from evil and pain.
“I have heard a message from the Lord; an envoy was sent to the
nation to say, ‘Assemble yourselves to attack it! Rise up for battle!’” Jeremiah 49:14 NIV
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