Gratitude, Gratefulness, Appreciation, and Thanksgiving

Lord, thank You first, for the plethora of words for thanks in our English language. May the abundance of food we eat be matched by the richness and overflow of their expression.

Create in us hearts of general gratitude that shape our whole outlook on life and define our relationship with You. Help us take a position of gratitude, Lord, from which to operate, and let it promote joy, well-being, humility, and generosity, within ourselves and flowing out toward others.

Add to us specific gratefulness, Father, for each blessing You give. Help us not take for granted any one of them, especially the small, or the individual when they are rushing toward us in great numbers. Carry our gratefulness beyond duty to heartfelt emotion and real notice of Your love's expression. 

Bring us to appreciation of the value and quality of a person, a thing, a place, a virtue. Help appreciation sink deep into our spirits, that we don't forget, ignore, or run slipshod over the worth of people and provision you place in our midst. Instead, may we esteem them as the gifts they are. 

To culminate such inner work, we ask, Lord, please help us do acts of true thanksgiving, so that we not only believe but do, as James might say--showing our thanks to be true and encouraging others and creating community as we do. Let Thanksgiving Day be more than a ritual that assuages consciences while we sate ourselves on food and football; let it be a ritual that reminds us to desire real gratitude, gratefulness, appreciation, and thanksgiving in our hearts, and help us, Father, cultivate them to the full.

Amen.