Editor’s Note: For thirty years, Chicago Tribune columnist Joan Beck penned an annual prayer in free verse for many things that made her grateful in the year gone by. With appreciation for her inspiration and input from the Illinois Baptist team, we attempt a similar expression of gratitude.
As we gather together to ask
the Lord’s blessings, 398 years
after the first Thanksgiving Day,
we look back on a year of
immigrants and refugees,
fires and floods,
wars and threats,
mountains steep and
journeys lonesome,
traversing the valley of
the shadow of death,
but finding it’s only a shadow.
Much has changed in the year
gone by.
Farewell
we bade to some held dear, and
hugs of welcome to others near.
For the couple once said
not to bear,
On a bright and blessed morn,
Found an answer to
Hannah’s prayer;
Isaiah’s prophecy come true
“For unto us a child is born,
To us a son is given.”
Good, good Father,
we’re grateful for young parents
whose life is lived in rhyme,
Llama Llama
and Good Night, Moon,
Hop on Pop,
and the silver spoon,
Baby Shark’s unending tune,
that keeps on playing
in our heads.
God of our fathers,
whose almighty hand
Leads forth in beauty,
a father’s happy band:
This family man who’s proudest
most for his daughters’ growth
in love like Christ’s,
Marking their steps to maturity
With grace, amazing,
And good raising.
Come, ye thankful people, come;
Count your blessings
one and all.
In life we find that things
deemed small are actually
the greater things;
In simplicity we find
the truest blessing.
Our fathers’ God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
We beseech Thee, on the
threshold of the quadrennial
exercise of our democracy,
That the founders’ dream
will be found true,
That we can keep our republic,
as Franklin said.
“Though passion may have
strained,” our native Lincoln
asserted, “it must not break our
bonds of affection.
“The mystic chords of memory
will swell when again touched,
as surely they will be,
by the better angels
of our nature.”
Stir the slumb’ring chords again
of moral rectitude and civility,
Godly vision and clarity
in Lincoln’s land
and every man.
O God, our help in ages past,
and our eternal home,
In believing friends and family
we are grateful for
a deeper grasp of unity.
We see the beauty in
opening our lives to others,
so we know we’re not alone,
and others may know
they are not alone.
The Triune God
in Eternal Community
has blessed us in relationships
much as his own in the Godhead.
Then sings my soul:
“Like hinges straining from the
weight, my heart no longer can
keep from singing.”
Mercy Me!
“All that is within me cries
for You, alone, be glorified!
Emmanuel,
God with us!”
Thank you, Lord,
for saving my soul,
for redeeming my deepest trials,
for each time I surrender,
I discover surrender is a
beautiful experience all around,
and I can attest again
“…that neither death, nor life,
nor angels, nor principalities,
nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come,
nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature,
shall be able to separate us
from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus
our Lord.”
Amen.
Eric Reed, with contributions from the Illinois Baptist team and their 2019 life experiences: Meredith Flynn, Leah Honnen, Kris Kell, and Lisa Misner.