A heartfelt thank-you to those participating in our Thanksgiving 2013 Share a Prayer. Please continue using that space to request and receive prayers for as long as you’re moved to. I’d love to see those exchanges continue through at least Thanksgiving Day, since it’s often on the day itself that we find ourselves most in need of comfort and communion.
Reading what you left on that post (and I have and will continue to read every comment) has this morning moved me to pray this, as I say and type it:
Dear God:
When we are in the middle of our pain all we know is our pain: we are overwhelmed by the present, suffocated by the moment, blinded by the onslaught, awash in our tumult.
And such trials are never far from us. Our lives are ever attended by heartbreak, fear, alienation, confusion, estrangement, need.
We come into the world already evicted.
We are born crying.
Perhaps we knew what we were in for.
But we were born.
That did happen. We are here.
The life force—the exact same power that sustains and fuels everything—is very definitely with us.
And for that, God, I want to thank you.
You did it. You threw the switch that lit us up. You conjured a full-on miracle—and put our face on it.
You gave us life. Raw, crazy, disastrous, joyous, mind-boggling, soul-wrenching, boring, dumbfounding—all of it. It’s all ours, the whole thrilling, bizarre shebang of it. And it all came from you, a gift free and undeserved.
Thank you. For just this moment I want to put aside all the world’s troubles, and all the troubles of my own, and, on behalf of all my friends here, thank you. Thank you for the beating of our hearts, for the blood in our veins, for the capacity of our minds, for the strength of our spirit, for the undying love of life and others that keeps us going, keeps us focused, keeps us hopeful, keeps us believing—and confident, even, despite and underneath it all—that you are there, that you are good, and that you love us.
And God, be with those who during this time of year are more alone than they should be. Hold their hand. Put your arm around their shoulder. Hug them close to you. Let them know that you’re there, that you’re watching, that their feelings are your own, and that if there’s one thing in this world they can trust, it’s that winter, every single year, becomes again spring.
Let them feel, know, and embrace the truth that ultimately, in this game, we all win.
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In