A Blessing for a 2020 Thanksgiving

Loving God, we thank you for the good this year has brought, for our health and jobs and homes, for our friends and our families, for the things we’ve learned and the clarity we’ve received in a time of trial.  We thank you for your provision and for giving us creative ways to connect with and serve one another in this time of separation.

We thank you for the nurses and doctors and researchers who are toiling to lead us out of danger.  For the leaders who work in the details to move us forward through an ever-changing and unknown landscape. We thank you for those unsung leaders in our communities, church, country, and world who have risen up in this year out of a response to the need or pain of others.  They are your hands.

We thank you for the voices in the wilderness, light in the darkness, calm in the storm.

And, God of compassion, we pray for the ones who are alone or who feel alone in this time.  We pray for those who have lost loved ones to COVID or any other cause this year, who struggle in nursing homes, who are homeless, unemployed or underemployed.

We pray for the kids, the ones in classrooms and the ones at home, the little ones and the college ones, the ones trying to make it all work.  We give thanks for the people who love and care for children, for the teachers, parents and caregivers who pour out of their depleted selves each day for the benefit of a child of yours.  

We pray for those who are suffering job loss, food insecurity, illness of mind or body, or loneliness and for the hands that do and will help them in their time of need.  Show us the ways we can encourage and serve each other out of our particular gifts and abundance for the benefit of our brothers and sisters. 

Lord, we pray for the ones with whom we disagree, in our church and country and world.  Help us to remember your love for each one and our connection to each other as we find a level ground on which to walk forward together. 

God, we thank you for those who are gathered around our table and for the ones who aren’t, help us to feel the bond that unites us even still.  You are present in each home, in each heart, in front of each bowl of mashed potatoes, in each zoom call, phone call and over each piece of pie.  You live within us, as our morning star and our friend and father.  Help us to know in our bones that this too shall pass, and to gather up all of the wisdom and light you have for us until it does. Ease our sadness and ache and bless us on this Thanksgiving and the next one too, when we pray we’ll all be gathered together again in health and peace. 

We pray in the name of Jesus who loves us through all hard things, amen.