Thanksgiving Prayers
Thanksgiving isn't only about sharing a wonderful meal with your loved ones, it is also a time to meditate on all you are grateful for. This practice of expressing gratitude is not limited to any particular religious tradition. To that end, Beliefnet has compiled prayers of gratitude from a variety of religions in honor of Thanksgiving.
Read the first prayer in our Thanksgiving Prayers gallery.
Prayer of Thanksgiving
Prayer of Thanksgiving
We gather today, Lord of abundant life, as grateful children. Delighted and humbled by our bounty, we celebrate gifts of food and shelter, of colors that dance at dawn and dusk; we relish the scent of cooking foods, of burning leaves and summer's wet grass, of snowflake, of animal fur. We marvel at the intricacy of spiders' webs and fish bones, newborn babies and lines etched on faces of grandparents come for a visit today. All gifts from Your hand. When our meal is completed, leftovers stashed, and naps taken, we will leave replete, energized, and eager to go generously into the world and share our good fortune.
Author Unknown
Thank You for My Life
Thank You for My Life
Dear God, thank you for my life on this earth, however challenging or not. Thank you for giving me free will to love and be loved, to make my own decisions, to learn from my mistakes, to laugh when I am happy, to cry when I am sad. Thank you for my family, my friends, my pets, my colleagues, and for every other living creature I meet along my journey. Thank you for giving me strength to overcome adversity, to do what's right for the benefit of the greater good, to rise above negativity. Thank you for giving me hope for an end to world suffering, pain, and war, for a beginning of a world filled with light and everlasting love.
By Debbie Gissoni
In Gratitude for Family and Friends
In Gratitude for Family and Friends
Blessed are You, loving Father, For all your gifts to us. Blessed are You for giving us family and friends To be with us in times of joy and sorrow, To help us in days of need, And to rejoice with us in moments of celebration... Father, We praise You for Your Son Jesus, Who knew the happiness of family and friends, And in the love of Your Holy Spirit. Blessed are you forever and ever.
Catholic Doors Ministry
Prayer of Thanks for Creation
Prayer of Thanks for Creation
Great and Eternal Mystery of Life, Creator of All Things, I give thanks for the beauty You put in every single one of Your creations. I am grateful that You did not fail in making every stone, plant, creature, and human being a perfect and whole part of the Sacred Hoop. I am grateful that You have allowed me to see the strength and beauty of All My Relations. My humble request is that all of the Children of Earth will learn to see the same perfection in themselves. May none of Your human children doubt or question Your wisdom, grace, and sense of wholeness in giving all of Creation a right to be living extensions of Your perfect love.
Author Unknown
Prayer for Thanksgiving Surprises
Prayer for Thanksgiving Surprises
For a friend's unexpected call, for a letter unforeseen, for the sunlight bursting through thick clouds, for a porpoise frolicking in the water, for seals basking in the sun, for an invitation to dinner on a lonely eve, for a request to "come along"; for all the wonderful surprises of life we give you thanks, O God of joy. Amen.
By Vienna Cobb Anderson
Thanks for Provision
Thanks for Provision
Almighty and gracious Father, we give you thanks for the fruits of the earth in their season and for the labors of those who harvest them. Make us, we beseech thee, faithful stewards of thy great bounty, for the provision of our necessities and the relief of all who are in need, to the glory of thy Name; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Book of Common Prayer (1979)
Prayer of Thanks
Prayer of Thanks
Throughout all generations we will render thanks unto Thee And declare Thy praise, Evening, morning, and noon, For our lives which are in Thy care, For our souls which are in Thy keeping For thy miracles which we witness daily, And for Thy wondrous deeds and blessings toward us at all times.
Author Unknown
With Every Breath
With Every Breath
With every breath I take today, I vow to be awake; And every step I take, I vow to take with a grateful heart-- So I may see with eyes of love into the hearts of all I meet, To ease their burden when I can And touch them with a smile of peace.
Author Unknown
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