A thanksgiving prayer

A PRAYER FOR THANKSGIVING 2008

Dear God of Grace and Glory,

We have given you our anxiety in these last several months.

We are anxious in our financial lives, anxious in our political lives,

Anxious for our jobs, for our family, for our country, for our government.

We worry about what we have lost, or what we might lose in the future.

We worry about what we have, and what we might not have.

The world is now full of our anxiety; we have infected the world with worry.

So be with us today, and this week, as we take time to give something else.

We have a choice this week, and throughout our lives.

We can choose to give anxiety, or to give thanks.

We can choose to offer worry, or to offer thanks.

Be with us today, and this week, as we take time to give thanks.

When St. Paul told the Philippians not to worry about anything,

But in everything with thanksgiving to let your requests be made known to God,

He was saying that it is impossible

To give anxiety and to give thanks at the same time.

It is impossible to be anxious and to be thankful at the same time.

Help us choose this week to be thankful.

We offer thanks this day, thinking not about yesterday,

Nor about tomorrow, but about today.

We seek first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness,

And so many things are given to us. Today.

Sufficient for the day is the grace thereof, and we are grateful for that grace.

We give thanks for grace, for your grace,

Resting over us like daily glory in the wilderness.

We give thanks this day, not anxiety, not worry.

We give thanks.

AMEN. ( from Sam Candler, Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip)

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