It’s Thanksgiving time God, so I want to offer this short prayer. My life hasn’t been exactly what I dreamed it would look like. But thank you God,
thank you for pain.

I have learned the greater the pain, the more it broadens and deepens my life to contain that much more joy, more laughter, more peace.

Thank you God for moments of sickness, because they have made me pray for those whose sickness does not stop.

Thank you God for every moment where I have sensed a need or want, for through these needs, you have revealed how only you satisfy my soul with yourself.

I am thankful for loneliness so intense I thought my soul would break. For in loneliness I felt your heart for those you know deeply and love, but who do not even know you exist.

I thank you, God, for moments of hearing hard words, for they have opened my heart to understanding other people’s pain and needs more thoroughly.

Thank you God for “unanswered prayers”, because sometimes the things I think I want, you either deem not your best for me, or are not your right timing.

Thank you for your patience with me when I have been impatient. Your kindness when I have felt unworthy.
Thank you for loving me clear down deep to my spirit, even when my life felt so shallow, unimportant and undignified.

Thank you for challenging me with situations where I could see no light at the end of the tunnel. They made me stop and realize you are the light of the world. I need to stop looking down a tunnel of my own understanding, into yours.

Thank you for silence. In those moments when I longed for a song, you taught me how to write my own music.

Thank you God for the moments of deep sadness, for rainy days. You have taught me how to dance with you and to you and for you, and the sun will come shining through.

Thank you for helping me cry every tear, for tears soften the soil of my heart.

“Thank you”… these two words don’t seem enough to thank you for how you take the hard times in my life and redeem them… but none the less, thank you!