it's that time of year again, time to express our gratitude for family, friends, and other blessings.
Let us pray*:
Mighty source of each good gift of life,
we remember your loving-kindness and your uncounted mercies
as we join in grateful praise.
For all your gifts to us and to our human race;
for our life and the world in which we live,
we give thanks.
For the order and constancy of nature;
for the beauty and bounty of the world;
for day and night, summer and winter, seed-time and harvest;
for the varied joys, which every season brings,
we give thanks.
For the work we are enabled to do,
and the truth we discover;
for whatever good there has been in our past,
and for all the hopes which lead us on toward better things,
we give thanks.
For all the joy and comforts of life;
for homes and families;
for our friends;
for the love, sympathy, and goodwill of persons near and far;
we give thanks.
For all cultures, wise government, and just laws which order our common life;
for education and all the treasures of literature, science, and art,
we give thanks.
For the discipline of life;
for the tasks and trails which train us to know ourselves
and which bring us to accept one another,
we give thanks.
For the desire and power to help others;
for every opportunity of serving our generation in ways large or small,
we give thanks.
For the tender ties which bind us to unseen worlds;
for the hope which dispels the shadows of earth
and fills the closing years of life with the light of hope,
we give thanks.
Source of all grace and love,
we have given thanks with our lips
for all the richness and meaning that life holds for us.
Now send us into the world to give thanks with our lives. Amen.