Two Prayers for the New Year

Friends, I’d planned to write a longer reflection this week, but school is canceled this afternoon because of the winter storm, so those thoughts will wait. In the meantime, here are two prayers that caught my attention for the New Year. I want to spend time this week praying and savoring them both.

The first is from Seeking God’s Face:

Maker of heaven and earth, space and time, entering this new year I put my hope in you, trusting that you will provide whatever I need for body and soul and turn to my good whatever adversity you send me. Thank you that you are able to do this because you are almighty God, and that you desire to do this because you are a faithful Father. Amen.

The second was shared by a friend on Facebook and was written by Jeff Chu:

May you make room for both delight and disappointment, joy and sorrow, and through it all, may you feel the courage to name these things candidly and to navigate them wisely.

May you perceive the beauty around you and within you—in the dance of the sunshine on freshly fallen snow, in the growth of the buds that will soon enough pop up to remind us of the resilience of life, in the swirls and whirls of a flock of birds against a blue sky, in an unexpected burst of shared laughter, in the gift of an offered confidence, in the satisfying savor of a favorite meal, in the complexity of the body that receives that goodness but also honestly vexes you—and may all this stir in you not just gratitude but also wonder.

May you know deep and true rest: rest that enfolds you into its restorative gentleness, rest that fuels you for the road ahead, rest that sings to you a story of grace.

May you sense the possibility of hope.

May you be blindsided by blessing.

May you feel the strong and tender embrace of the God who made you, the God who gave his body and breath for you, and the God who accompanies you still.

May you be attentive to the love that is always with you and for you, recognizing its steady presence, receiving it with gladness, and lavishing it onto a world that so yearns for its justice and its balm.

Amen.