I've never really heard a prayer like this before. At the start of the state Senate's business today, a guest of Sen. Frank Nicely (R-Strawberry Plains), June Griffin, offered the following prayer, with her voice sometimes breaking as she beseeched the Maker:

I pray for the people of Tennessee who have been so downtrodden by the wicked courts from on high that they have been subject to tyrannical judiciary. And I pray that you would save Tennessee from the edicts of Washington DC that would go against the plain wishes of the people of Tennessee, particularly pertaining to the 9th and 10th Amendment.

I pray that you would sanctify this state, that it would be holy and would be a leader among the other states. That they would see that there is a God that lives, that you love the people of Tennessee. That you gave your life that we might be saved from our sins. I pray that you would forgive the many sins of carelessness or lethargy or desperation. The compromises.

Oh lord save Tennessee for Jesus sake, and I pray that your will would be done that you would be our coverage, that we would not be forced into these edicts from Washington DC or any other quarter, but let the people know that our coverage is the same as with Moses and the children of Israel when they went through the wilderness with only the divine providence of almighty God.

So I pray that everywhere there are meetings, and there is considerations and deliberations, that you would give these men and women who have been elected, give them the backbone and the remembrance of the Tennessee Declaration of Rights, Article 1, Section 2 — we are ordered to resist arbitrary power.

And I pray that this Bill Ketron would know your healing hand, that you would be with him and show him his responsibility. And show him that you are Jehovah Rapha, I am the lord thy God that healeth thee. I pray that healing would come to our state. That you would show that you favor us, because we love thee. Our fathers loved thee. And so we ask all of these things through our great and merciful high priest, who prays for us night and day. Save us from all of the enemies of our holy liberties. In Jesus holy name, Amen.