Dear God,
You have invited us to give you thanks, and this is what we wish to do. We live in a time in which there is great anxiety, but you have offered us a way out of anxiety. We long to know your loving care. We pray to you because there is no one so good, so high, so holy, and so merciful as you.
Thank you that you have invited us to bring our petitions and our requests to you. Who else can we go to for wisdom, or for hope, or for guidance? We pray for the victims of violence wherever they may be found. We pray for those in authority, that they would seek and find the wisdom that comes from above.
We pray for peace in the world. And we pray for peace in our own hearts, a peace that proceeds from your forgiveness, the wholeness that comes from your restorative touch.
We thank you for creating a world you called “good.”
We thank you that despite the evil that has entered the world and still wages war in our own souls, your own goodness is undiminished.
We thank you that we have seen
honor that is bolder than shame…
mercy that is wider than cruelty…
truth that is straighter than deception…
faith that is stronger than treachery…
hope that is deeper than desperation.
We thank you for the ordinary things: the bread we receive today, the breath by which we live today.
And we thank you for the extraordinary things: the strength we didn’t know was possible, and the discovery of truths we didn’t know we didn’t know.
We thank you for the immeasurable grace shown to us in the coming of Jesus Christ, the hope of the world.
In His Name,
Amen