February 7, 2008

The Prayer of Thanksgiving
Read Colossians 3:15-17

We all pray for many reasons and there are many different kinds of prayer. Many of us make deals with God. For example, “If You get me out of this mess, I will be good forever.” God is viewed as a candy machine. That is, if I put forth some effort, would you, God, do something for me in return?
And as many have often said, as long as there are exams, there will be prayer in the public schools!

What this devotion is about is different kind of prayer but certainly a kind of prayer that is not unknown to most of us. I would like to say a word about the prayer of thanksgiving. As many of you know, our long-awaited, first grandchild was born on 12/15/07, a month early and small for his gestational age after a difficult labor and delivery. Both mother and baby were in the hospital for 10 days with various issues but were finally released on Christmas Eve. All of us including several in-laws had been preparing the house for their arrival home and once the mother and baby settled in, we all gathered to have dinner.

Now I’d have to say I have never been very articulate praying in public. I always have needed a note or two at the very least to guide me along. But that night, as we bowed our heads before dinner, the words flowed. We all felt profound gratitude for the birth of our new family member and the recovery of his mother. After this experience, I will never approach Christmas Eve without an outpouring of thanksgiving not only for the birth of the Christ-child, but for the homecoming of our grandson and his mother.

Vivian Anderson