Thanksgiving Prayers

This year, like every Thanksgiving, we will read from the copy of A Prayer of Thanksgiving by Robert Lewis Stevenson that my son made in elementary school. 

(click here to read the words-it’s a nice non-denominational  prayer!)

If you attend Thanksgiving services at an Episcopalian church, you may say this prayer of “general thanksgiving”:

Accept, O Lord, our thanks and praise for all that you have done for us. We thank you for the splendor of the whole creation, for the beauty of this world, for the wonder of life, and for the mystery of love.

We thank you for the blessing of family and friends, and for the loving care which surrounds us on every side.

We thank you for setting us at tasks which demand our best efforts, and for leading us to accomplishments which satisfy
and delight us.

We thank you also for those disappointments and failures that lead us to acknowledge our dependence on you alone.

Above all, we thank you for your Son Jesus Christ; for the
truth of his Word and the example of his life; for his steadfast
obedience, by which he overcame temptation; for his dying,
through which he overcame death; and for his rising to life
again, in which we are raised to the life of your kingdom.

Grant us the gift of your Spirit, that we may know him and
make him known; and through him, at all times and in all
places, may give thanks to you in all things. Amen.

With the news from Ferguson weighing heavily on my heart, I also will be saying these prayers from the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church:

Prayer for social justice:

Grant, O God, that your holy and life-giving Spirit may so
move every human heart and especially the hearts of the
people of this land, that barriers which divide us may
crumble, suspicions disappear, and hatreds cease; that our
divisions being healed, we may live in justice and peace;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Prayer in times of conflict:

O God, you have bound us together in a common life. Help us,
in the midst of our struggles for justice and truth, to confront
one another without hatred or bitterness, and to work
together with mutual forbearance and respect; through Jesus
Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Does your family say “grace” before Thanksgiving dinner?