Prayers for Our City: March 5, 2018 – Family

and rescues them from the pit and destruction.”    Psalm 107:17-20

This week we come to You, Father, to bless those who are at the forefront of the opioid crisis here in our own Huntsville/Madison County.  We ask that 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 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.

Thank You for over 15 locations in Huntsville where drug and alcohol treatment services can be found.  [http://www.addicted.org/directory/item/huntsville-afg.html].  We invite the peace of Your presence to fill each place, to speak through each leader, and to envelop each participant.

http://time.com/4890536/opioid-heroin-overdose-deaths/

Our hearts break as we intercede for the families grieving over the loss of a loved one to this epidemic and for those who are in the midst of the battle.  We pray that the hearts of government leaders, physicians, insurance company execs and patients alike will cry out: “Enough!”   It’s time for a shifting of mindsets as we wrestle with the ethics of pain management both professionally and personally.

Give us faith and perseverance to pray and to be part of the solution!  We want these terrible statistics to be greatly reduced by next year in Madison County!

* Based on 2017 statistics, Madison County averages a drug-related death every five days.

* Drug-related deaths account for 43% of the accidental deaths in Madison County in 2017.

* Opioid overdose (and the result of mixing different drugs) accounts for 75% of the drug-related deaths in our county for 2017.

* HEMSI officials are calling the overdose epidemic a major public health crisis. In a six month period last year, HEMSI responded to more than 400 local overdose calls.