A-Z Thanksgiving Prayer
Tuesday Thought 11.26.24
From 25 years ago, lightly edited, still true!
Thanksgiving, 1995 Dearest, dearest Papa, Almighty Abba...Your love is beyond all grasping and yet your compassion surrounds me. I love you more this year than I did last and I see you more clearly. I thank you for all that is, because "everything here reminds me of You". I thank you for avocados and anise, for artichokes and art, for bees and beef and broccoli and a possible peace in Bosnia. You are to be utterly commended for cars that allow such freedom and pleasure. For sugar cane and candles that we light in darkness. Cold-rolled steel is your gift to make the accouterments of industrial society. Daylilies shine forth your glory, diamonds display your brilliance. Eels evoke your smoothness and fluidity as fish find their food from your Hand. God, you are my God. I will have no other gods before you. I honor you for your honesty with us. I thank you that you are a Father who wants an honest relationship. I thank you for holiness and the promise of our wholeness for which I continually long. I thank you for the Inuit people whom you love tenderly in their cold igloos full of skins. Indigo and all your colors really bless my heart--You could have made it all shades of grey... Jesus, how do I thank you for You?!! Dearest, Dearest Jesus, nothing and no one compares with You. You are Just and Justifier, Sufficient. Jesus, I thank you for Karen—for who you have made me to be and for who you will make me to be. I lay myself open to You... I cannot do otherwise. Your kindness compels me to continued stretching towards You. I so count on your kindness... The kindness of your eyes, the kindness of your voice, the kindness of your touch. Oh, Love that wilt not let me go... You are mystery, but you are Love. I rest in the embrace of your love for me as I ponder your provision. Only You could have made lemons and lemonade; and Larnelle Harris and lightening. Love will conquer all in the end and the lion will lay down with the lamb. I long for that light to burst from that cloud. I thank you for the Mass, which imbued my spirit with mystery. I thank you for moss, which knows its own environment. More awareness this year of who You are and who I am—I'm very grateful. I thank you for more love and more power. There is no one like you, oh God, in all the earth. No, no one else. Nothing compares. Nothing measures up. There's nothing we can do—You have done it all! Nobody loves me like you do. Nobody holds me like you do, Nobody speaks like you speak, Nobody dances with me like you dance, Nobody else creates joy in me. Only You. And yet, I thank you for Paul and Peter and the others, who have borne a preponderance of evidence to me. I thank you for their provision of the Word on which I stand. I so appreciate the quietness of my life—these hours of quiet and contemplation from which I do battle. I can't thank you enough for righteousness a gift...There will be no end to my gratitude...The Royal scepter has been extended. You have given us the right to grasp it—to be ushered right into your throne room. Oh, Papa, I thank You for the depth of trust I feel these days. Your trustworthiness is more and more precious to me. "Underneath are the Everlasting Arms." Variety must surely be the spice of Your life and I, too, delight in your great varieties of Joy, displayed in your creation. What can I say? Words are woefully inadequate. I could xerox this and send it to everyone in the world, all the billions...and yet, that wouldn't be enough. I thank you, Jesus, that all the Promises of Father are "Yes" in you. Yes, and AMEN, and Hallelujah and GLORY! I want to ride a zebra in the Kingdom. I want to wear white, well-washed linen while I ride your zebra. Well-washed in your blood and gleaming with your Glory. Holy God. Copyright, 1999, Karen Rabbitt