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Prayer for Thanksgiving
O
God, I sometimes think I don't know what to thank you for. Sometimes I don't
even think I have anything to thank you for. Should I thank you that I am
overfed while others starve? Or I am safe while others are in trouble? Should I
thank you because I have enough money to spend and others have so little? Lord,
sometimes I'm embarrassed when I thank you. And Lord, what shall I ask you for?
Yes, Lord, I can ask you for some things: peace on earth, the end to ignorance,
poverty, hunger and disease. It's hard to even know sometimes what to ask you
for that isn't an empty platitude, a set of mere words. And I ask you, “can I
ask you for anything?” Yes, Lord, help me to pray. Help me to ask for the
capacity to be silent so I can hear and see others, the capacity to empathize
with the suffering of others, not to become dull to the feelings of others.
Help me to give thanks for the gift of saying "we," for having
friends and family and people who care. Help me to give thanks for the courage
of people who sustain life in places and times that take our breath away. Help
us to give thanks for poetry and beauty, which make life more incredible than
any definition we have of it. Help us to give thanks for the sense of wonder
and infinite caring and love without which we would all die. Lord, help us to
give thanks for the gift of being able to give thanks.
Be with us in our homes on Thanksgiving Day. Be
with those of us who are going to be alone that day -- it's a lonely day for
those alone. Help them to know that you are with them. And those of us who are
surrounded by family, let us not make it so frantic and hectic that we can't
take time to feel how good it is to be together. Almighty God, be in our
thanksgiving.
-- Shirley Harris Crockett
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| The Book of Prayers from which this prayer is taken, with a drawing of Shirley |
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