Prayer As We Remember What We Have To Be Grateful For

It’s Thanksgiving holiday weekend here in Canada.  During this season of the pandemic what are we thankful for?  Well, it is a long weekend with a work holiday on Monday so that’s a quick start in the gratitude column.

I know for the first time that I can remember there will be no Thanksgiving gathering with my mother and the Quick family.  No “Gophers vs Geezers” baseball game.  No room full of laughter and chatter that it’s hard to hear over but great fun to listen to.  It’s a pretty major adjustment with a family like ours and that’s the same for thousands of other families. 

I just read through an article from local health officials with tips for celebrating a safe Thanksgiving meal – whew!! 

•     make it small among people already within a social group

•     celebrate outside if you can

•     check with guests for illness symptoms

•     keep music low so guests don’t have to speak too loudly

•     everyone wash hands before eating

•     don’t share serving utensils

And on and on the list of tips goes. 

When it seems that this second wave of the pandemic is squeezing the joy from this celebration I think it’s good to take a moment to remember all we have, actually, to be grateful for.  At times like this I’m often drawn to one of the Psalms – 136.  The writer traces the history of God’s people – all the ups and down, good times and troubles and after every line reminds us to give thanks because,  “His faithful love endures forever.”

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!  His faithful love endures forever.  Give thanks to him who alone does mighty miracles.  His faithful love endures forever. 

He remembered us in our weakness.  His faithful love endures forever.  He saved us from our enemies.  His faithful love endures forever.  He gives food to every living thing.  His faithful love endures forever. 

Give thanks to the God of heaven.  His faithful love endures forever.  Psalm 136:1, 4, 24-26

These people were doing something that is so right and so uplifting – making a gratitude list.  Being thankful is a practical and reliable way to retrain our thoughts and encourage our hearts.  Let’s take a moment and do that today.

Heavenly Father, the one whose faithful love endures forever.  We’re grateful that we can come close to You today and know that You are with us.  You’ve promised never to leave us or forsake us.  We may not be able to gather with extended family these days and troubles may surround us but we have Your care and Your closeness to lift us up and to take us forward.

It’s easy to fix our focus on what we don’t have and what isn’t right in our world.  This holiday weekend, along with the church and so many others who have walked with You Lord through joys and sorrows, successes and crushing defeats, and just through the mundane as well as the exciting, we just want to reaffirm today that Your faithful love endures forever for us as well as the ancient people of Israel we read about in the Bible. 

If we take just a short time we can put together a gratitude list full of blessings in these days and over the whole span of our lives.  It can be as simple as the many beautiful sunsets or fall trees filled with colour.  I’m always reminded to be grateful just to be able to see these things with people like my mom who can no longer see and who is still so grateful day after day.  We can smell and taste today when many sick with the virus cannot.  We can breathe in the fresh crisp air while so many others can only breathe with assistance.  We are not waking up to the banging and shaking of bombs being dropped on our neighbourhoods.  In my lifetime many of us have not had to endure war on our doorsteps when so many millions of other have.  For those who have known the trauma of terror in their neighborhoods recently or at some point in the past we pray for peace today and healing from the impact of those difficult times.  We give thanks for every day of peace in our families, our neighbourhoods, our nations.

Heavenly Father, You are good and give good gifts all the time. It’s so easy to forget all that we have.  Forgive us for our temperamental ways and our short memories.  Help us again today to see Your faithful love through the decades of our lives and to allow Your goodness to fill our hearts with confidence and faith today as we give thanks to You, the God whose faithful love endures forever.  Help us to trust Your good heart to walk with us every moment of every day and take us forward through this time of crisis in this second wave of the pandemic.  You will get us to the other side and for that we give You thanks.  Amen