Prayer for Thanksgiving Week
I know so many who are facing immense challenges right now.
Those who aren't dealing with immediate crises are still stepping into the holidays: a time which, whether you're in a family unit or single, can be extra stressful and triggering.
Those who are single or live alone are often confronted with heightened feelings of loneliness and separation. If a loved one has recently been lost, the grief of missing them can also become more pronounced.
Those in family units or with visiting families often encounter a re-opening of the wound caused by family trauma, and festering tensions threaten to bubble above the surface. Potential additional stresses can be caused by parenting children, caring for aging parents, finances, and more.
So, yes, Thanksgiving is a festive time filled with opportunities to be consciously grateful for the blessings in our lives, but it can also be a time of challenges/growth opportunities.
I wrote down the following “Prayer for Thanksgiving Week" as best I could after praying similar words for myself and my family yesterday.
Some of my biggest spiritual lessons are being learned in the context of family and such immense lessons require a lot of prayer.
Happy Thanksgiving— May the Spirit of Love, Light, and Peace reign in your heart this holiday!
Prayer for Thanksgiving Week
During this week of Thanksgiving
When I am around those who
Are so close to my heart
That their actions and words
Affect me more so than any others
I want to stay in touch with you, Lord
I want to stay in the space, where I feel your spirit
lighting me up from within with a brightness of great love and warmth.
Show me how to stay here while in the presence of others,
Especially those closest to me.
Please let your peace settle upon me and not scatter and dissipate
The moment a conflict arises
The moment someone engages my ego
The moment doubt spreads like wildfire throughout the group
The moment a tension wears like an incredible burden
And my heart wants to retreat and collapse
Because the hurt feels so immediate and real
We all want so much to be understood
That sometimes we can’t understand
Help me, as St. Francis prayed,
To not seek to be understood, so much as I seek to understand
And in that understanding, in that seeing,
Please help me to shine with your light
Let that light within illuminate my own hurts and hangups
That they might be healed in an instant
Let nothing fester and become rotten, Lord.
Show me how to keep the temple of your Spirit clear.
Help me to open to a transcendent awareness at the moments
When worldly and temporal cares are bearing down the hardest
And in those moments when I feel I’m not understood
In those moments when I feel alone,
Please give me the strength to offer that up to you,
Knowing that you faced unconsciousness and evils
Greater than I can possibly imagine.
You had encounter after encounter with those who did not understand,
And eventually they murdered you. But somehow that murder became a miracle.
Somehow, good triumphed over evil with that painful, terrible act.
For you rose again to glorious life, with greater power and light here on this earth than any human had anticipated.
The days after your resurrection were real enough, were convincing enough, that even the most doubtful among
Your followers came to believe.
Cowards became champions for the spread of the gospel and martyrs for the cause, each.
Lord, in your great sacrificial life, death, and resurrection, you have showed us so much that we can learn from.
You’ve given us the Holy Spirit and the hope of a future where the lion lies down with the lamb, tears cease, and worshipful love and adoration is the new reality.
Thank you for the work you have done and continue to do, in my heart and in all of humanity.
This Thanksgiving, let my heart be so full of gratitude and faith that the shadows fade and dissolve.
Let the dream and hope be so vivid and near that the nightmares and fear have no place here.
Let my home be one of love, light, healing, refuge, and mercy, Jesus.
Help me to stay in Your Presence and in Your Light.
Please let others around me also be illuminated in your beautiful light of love and peace.
In Jesus’ Name, Amen
