My New Years Prayer written December 31, 2015 by Stephen W. Smith Oh, Lord, Please grant me the grace to put behind me all the things, people, feelings and events that make me feel tethered to the past. and weigh me down and hinder my moving forward into a year of hope, health and unfolding events which I cannot see this evening. Help me, Jesus to let go of disappointments, disillusionments and defeats that wrap me in shame, guilt and blame. Help me to forgive those who have hurt me both knowingly and unknowingly. Give me the grace to let the hurt go and to release the power that hurt has in my life. Let me lean into the fresh start of a New Year with grace to live my life in a resilient way--a way marked by rhythm, grace and kindness. Because you hold all things together, please hold my future when I do not, as yet know it. I feel fragile. I feel weak. I feel vulnerable. I am exposed. Wrap me in your love and hide me in the cleft of your Rock. Please hold those I love in the palm of your mighty hands and fold of your tender heart. Hold them because you are mighty and I feel weak. I pray for the well-being of myself because if I fall apart in some unexpected way, the ripple effect of my disintegration will affect many. I ask, O Lord that you protect me even from myself--for I have made bad choices this past year. I ask, O Lord that you grant me wisdom to do three things: To listen to my wife, kids and soul friends; to allow me to be a blessing rather than a needy person; and finally to be an instrument of your love. I am sad this evening lamenting the loss of a grandchild who will soon be born but held only by you. Assuage my heart but tend to the heart of my wife and the parents of this child--more than you might tend to me. Their sadness seems unbearable. Please, O Lord, tend to them! Help me trust when I doubt; Help me love when I want to strike out and back. Help me to be kind when I want revenge or to set the record straight. In my awakening to my health, grant, dear Jesus that I would love my body and embrace my health as the vital piece of my soul care. Forgive me for all the years I walked in ignorance, denial and blame and took my body and health for granted. It is you who gives life. Forgive me for killing and attempting to kill my own temple that you made for my soul to dwell in. May I celebrate the life I have left and grant, O Lord, that my life--as long as I have breath, will be lived in celebration of my God who loved me; gave himself up for me and who through the life of my Savior, overcame the death that I would be living apart from what He has done in me. I ask this, not in my name for I am but a man. I ask this in the name of the One who is the Life I now seek; the breath I do now breathe and the hope that floods my heart on this advent of a totally new year--Jesus Christ. Amen. Say this prayer with me if youd like and lets celebrate a new beginning!
Posted on: Wed, 31 Dec 2014 23:37:54 +0000
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