Good Evening Dearly Loved Ones!
Happy Being Thoughtful and Thankful Thursday! We have much to be grateful for even in the midst of struggles. We need to spend as much time in thanksgiving as we do in prayer so that is why tonight's prayer focus is going to ever so slightly be more of a time of thanks than the usual gimme, gimme, gimme session. Before we begin let us take time to just breathe and close our eyes and feel the well of thanksgiving bubbling up from our heart homes. Let us seek God in our heart homes and be thankful.
Let's listen to this piece from Godspell:
All Good Gifts
God as we take time to spend time in our nightly virtual candlelight prayer vigils we come to you not only with our prayers but with our thanksgivings. We give thanks for the lives you have given us. We give thanks for the food that nourishes our bodies and pray for those who are hungry. We give thanks for our homes and pray for those who have no homes. We give thanks for our family and friends and pray for those who are lonely and invisible that we may welcome them into our families with love and outstretched arms. We give thanks for times that are challenges that give us courage to do better and . We give thanks for your love, light, and mercy that enable us to show these gifts to a fragile and broken world. We give thanks for the gifts of CALM (Compassion, acceptance, love, and mercy). We give thanks for expanding minds and hearts and pray for those whose minds that are narrow and hearts that are closed. We light these our candles in prayer, thanksgiving, celebration, and remembrance. We offer this time in the silence of our beings and lay them at the feet and in the loving arms of Jesus. Amen.
The following prayers come from the blog : Being Thoughtful and Thankful in Walk With Me On Our Journey (Adapted)
This blog has ideas to be able to serve the least of these and it is good all year round:
Here it is:
Being Thoughtful and thankful
Let us pray!
God of Hope, as w prepare to enter fully into the remainder of the year may we be given lenses that show us many things and where you would have us go, and what we are to become. Help us to lay down our worries and fears so that we may begin a little earlier to wait, watch, pray, and listen to you with open ears, hearts, and spirits.
God of Hope we pray for all of our family members who are in need of hope when they feel hopeless. Help us to bring hope to Your fragile and broken world.
God of Hope we pray for all our family members who are forced to live on the streets and out of doors during all kinds of weather. We pray that they may find sheltered areas from the winds, the heat, cold, rain, and snow. We pray that there may be homeless shelters and warming centers that will meet their needs as we know that one shelter type doesn't fit all.
God of Hope, we pray for our littlest family members who are in children's hospitals and PICU that they may be healed and be able to enjoy the life with their families.
God of Hope, we pray for all those who are dying and have died today that they may feel your loving presence and give them hope as they enter the Thin Places.
God of Hope, show us how to help creatively without having to write a check.
God of Hope, we pray for peace in your fragile and broken world. May we truly be blessed as peacemakers and find ourselves as your children.
God of Hope, we pray for all caregivers that they my find rest and respite.
God of Hope, we thank you for the gift of rain. May we continue to have more rain to refresh, replenish, and renew your drought parched earth.
God of Hope, help us to see You in all of our Family of Love's faces and that we may act accordingly and love, honor, and respect each other.
God of Hope, help us to love more fully, care more deeply, comfort with more compassion, and be more accepting and inclusive of all our family members.
God of Hope help us to console and comfort all who mourn at any stage of grief. Give us courage not to let any of our family members fall through the cracks.
God of Hope, we pray this night for all refugees, captives, political prisoners, victims of violence and abuse of any kind, victims of human trafficking and slavery.
God of Hope, we pray for ourselves and on behalf of others remembering especially______________
God of Hope, we offer our thanksgivings remembering especially______________________
God of Hope, we offer these our prayers and thanksgivings in the name of your only begotten son Jesus. Amen.
Or these
First let us take time to breathe:
Breathe in Love
Exhale and feel empowered by the Holy Spirit!
Breathe in Love
Exhale and feel empowered by the Holy Spirit!
Breathe in Love
Exhale and feel empowered by the Holy Spirit!
Exhale and feel empowered by the Holy Spirit!
God of Love and Goodness let us enter in prayer with open and loving hearts and hear your still small voice and do as you would have us do.
God of Love and Goodness let us pray and ask for forgiveness of any wrong thoughts, speech, or actions we may have done to hurt, harm, debase, or exclude any of your Children and our Family members.
God of Love and Goodness take away the pain that all our family members are are enduring by acts of hatred, violence, and words that are harsh and unloving.
God of Love and Goodness take away the pain that our family members are struggling with when they encounter injustice, inequality, and human rights violations.
God of Love and Goodness, take away the pain that our family members find themselves in as refugees, political prisoners, victims of violence, terror, abuse, and human trafficking, persecution of any kind, and release them from pain and suffering.
God of Love and Goodness help us to not hate but love, not to ignore but see you in our family members' faces.
God of Love and Goodness give us courage to make peace and be peace makers. May peace prevail upon Earth.
God of Love and Goodness protect the least of these and the most vulnerable remembering especially women, children, the elderly, and the mentally ill.
God of Love and Goodness help us to reach out to all of our estranged family members through out the world. May we seek to be united in hearts that are loving and souls that are bright with God's light.
God of Love and Goodness help us to become healers of your creation and learn to have reverence for its resources.
God of Love and Goodness we pray and remember those who have come to us asking for prayers and even those who have unspoken prayers that need to be offered. We remember especially___________ We also add our thanksgivings on this Being Thoughtful and Thankful Thursday remembering______________
God of Love and Goodness we pray and remember all of us who are continuing on grief's long journey. May we have times of lessened grief and when grief comes roaring back afresh we may seek your comfort and our family members.
Accept these our prayers in the name of Jesus our Redeemer, Friend, and the one who teaches us daily to love and not to hate and that yes, all means all and not some. Amen.
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Good Night Family of Love! Do you know why I call you Family of Love? I call you this because God is Love! So we are the Family of Love (God). May our heart, spirits, and souls join together in love, peace, hope, joy, and harmony. I love you and give thanks to God for you this night and always.
Love, blessings, hope, peace, and joy be always yours!
Sara
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