Christmas prayer by Thomas Ken, 1637-1711

Glory be to God in the highest, and on earth peace, goodwill towards men: for unto us is born a Saviour, Who is Christ the Lord.

We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we glorify Thee, we give thanks unto Thee, for this greatest of Thy mercies, O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.

O Lord, the only-begotten Son Jesus Christ, O Lord God, Lamb of God, Son of the Father, Who wast made man to take away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us by turning us from our iniquities. Thou Who wast manifested to destroy the works of the devil, have mercy upon us by enabling us to renounce and forsake them. Thou Who art the great Advocate with the Father, receive our prayer, we humbly beseech Thee.

Advent prayer by Francis Brienen

Wilderness is the place of Moses,
a place of no longer captive and not yet free,
of letting go and learning new living.

Wilderness is the place of Elijah,
a place of silence and loneliness,
of awaiting the voice of God and finding clarity.

Wilderness is the place of John,
a place of repenting,
of taking first steps on the path of peace.

Wilderness is the place of Jesus,
a place of preparation,
of getting ready for the reckless life of faith.

We thank you, God, for the wilderness.
Wilderness is our place.
As we wait for the land of promise,
teach us new ways of living,
lead us to where we hear your word most clearly,
renew us and clear out the wastelands of our lives,
prepare us for life in the awareness of Christ’s coming
when the desert will sing
and the wilderness blossom as the rose.

Evening prayer, from An Australian Prayer Book

Most merciful Father, we humbly thank you
for all your gifts so freely bestowed on us.
For life and health and safety,
for power to work and leisure to rest,
and for all that is beautiful in creation and in the lives of people,
we praise and glorify your holy name.

But, above all, we thank you
for your spiritual mercies in Christ Jesus our Lord,
for the means of grace,
and for the hope of glory.
Fill our hearts with all joy and peace in believing;
through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Give Thanks lyrics by Don Moen

Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks unto the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son
Give thanks with a grateful heart
Give thanks unto the Holy One
Give thanks because He's given Jesus Christ, His Son

And now let the weak say, "I am strong"
Let the poor say, "I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us"
And now let the weak say, "I am strong"
Let the poor say, "I am rich
Because of what the Lord has done for us"

Give thanks

Grateful People Are Happier, Healthier Long After the Leftovers Are Gobbled Up

This week's Wall Street Journal article speaks to how feelings of gratitude breed happiness and well-being - well worth a read! Our resources page features helpful books based upon some of this research, with more coming soon, including gratitude journals to regularly record whatever you are grateful for that day. And please add your thanks to our "I am thankful for..." sharing place. As we transition from the Thanksgiving holiday into Advent, let's keep giving thanks through Christmas and into the New Year!

Thanksgiving prayer by Harry Jewell

We Give Thanks

Our Father in Heaven,
We give thanks for the pleasure
Of gathering together for this occasion.
We give thanks for this food
Prepared by loving hands.
We give thanks for life,
The freedom to enjoy it all
And all other blessings.
As we partake of this food,
We pray for health and strength
To carry on and try to live as You would have us.
This we ask in the name of Christ,
Amen.

Prayer of General Thanksgiving by Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, 1489-1556

Almighty God, Father of all mercies,
we your unworthy servants give humble and hearty thanks
for all your goodness and loving kindness to us and to all people;
we bless you for our creation, preservation and all the blessings of this life;
but above all for your amazing love
in the redemption of the world through our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace;
and for the hope of glory.

And, we pray, give us that due sense of all your mercies,
that our hearts may be truly thankful
and that we may declare your praise
not only with our lips, but in our lives,
by giving up ourselves to your service,
and by walking before you in holiness and righteousness all our days;
through Jesus Christ our Lord,
to whom, with you and the Holy Spirit, be all honour and glory,
now and for ever. Amen.

Thanksgiving poem by Janie Alford

Thanks Be To God

I do not thank thee, Lord, that I have bread to eat while others starve;
Nor yet for work to do while empty hands solicit heaven;
Nor a body strong while other bodies flatten beds of pain.
No, not for these do I give thanks!

But I am grateful, Lord, because my meager loaf I may divide;
For that my busy hands may move to meet another's need;
Because my doubled strength I may expend to steady one who faints.
Yes, for all these do I give thanks!

For heart to share, desire to bear and will to lift,
Flamed into one by deathless Love -
Thanks be to God for this! Unspeakable! His Gift!

Lincoln's Thanksgiving Proclamation, October 3, 1863

The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful years and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the Source from which they come, others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can not fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.

In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity, which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere, except in the theater of military conflict, while that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union.

Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the field of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow, the shuttle, or the ship; the ax has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than theretofore. Population has steadily increased notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield, and the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom.

No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.

In testimony wherof I have herunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 3d day of October, A.D. 1863, and of the Independence of the United States the eighty-eighth.

[Signed]
A. Lincoln

Thanksgiving Day Prayer by Mary Fairchild

Heavenly Father, on Thanksgiving Day
We bow our hearts to You and pray.
We give You thanks for all You've done
Especially for the gift of Jesus, Your Son.
For beauty in nature, Your glory we see
For joy and health, friends and family,
For daily provision, Your mercy and care
These are the blessings You graciously share.
So today we offer this response of praise
With a promise to follow You all of our days.

The First National Proclamation of Thanksgiving, Continental Congress, November 1, 1777

FOR AS MUCH as it is the indispensable Duty of all Men to adore the superintending Providence of Almighty God; to acknowledge with Gratitude their Obligation to him for Benefits received, and to implore such farther Blessings as they stand in Need of: And it having pleased him in his abundant Mercy, not only to continue to us the innumerable Bounties of his common Providence; but also to smile upon us in the Prosecution of a just and necessary War, for the Defense and Establishment of our unalienable Rights and Liberties; particularly in that he hath been pleased, in so great a Measure, to prosper the Means used for the Support of our Troops, and to crown our Arms with most signal success:

It is therefore recommended to the legislative or executive Powers of these UNITED STATES to set apart THURSDAY, the eighteenth Day of December next, for SOLEMN THANKSGIVING and PRAISE: That at one Time and with one Voice, the good People may express the grateful Feelings of their Hearts, and consecrate themselves to the Service of their Divine Benefactor; and that, together with their sincere Acknowledgments and Offerings, they may join the penitent Confession of their manifold Sins, whereby they had forfeited every Favor; and their humble and earnest Supplication that it may please GOD through the Merits of JESUS CHRIST, mercifully to forgive and blot them out of Remembrance; That it may please him graciously to afford his Blessing on the Governments of these States respectively, and prosper the public Council of the whole: To inspire our Commanders, both by Land and Sea, and all under them, with that Wisdom and Fortitude which may render them fit Instruments, under the Providence of Almighty GOD, to secure for these United States, the greatest of all human Blessings, INDEPENDENCE and PEACE: That it may please him, to prosper the Trade and Manufactures of the People, and the Labor of the Husbandman, that our Land may yield its Increase: To take Schools and Seminaries of Education, so necessary for cultivating the Principles of true Liberty, Virtue and Piety, under his nurturing Hand; and to prosper the Means of Religion, for the promotion and enlargement of that Kingdom, which consisteth in Righteousness, Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost.

And it is further recommended, That servile Labor, and such Recreation, as, though at other Times innocent, may be unbecoming the Purpose of this Appointment, be omitted on so solemn an Occasion.

The First Thanksgiving Proclamation, June 20, 1676

The Holy God having by a long and Continual Series of his Afflictive dispensations in and by the present War with the Heathen Natives of this land, written and brought to pass bitter things against his own Covenant people in this wilderness, yet so that we evidently discern that in the midst of his judgments he hath remembered mercy, having remembered his Footstool in the day of his sore displeasure against us for our sins, with many singular Intimations of his Fatherly Compassion, and regard; reserving many of our Towns from Desolation Threatened, and attempted by the Enemy, and giving us especially of late with many of our Confederates many signal Advantages against them, without such Disadvantage to ourselves as formerly we have been sensible of, if it be the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed, It certainly bespeaks our positive Thankfulness, when our Enemies are in any measure disappointed or destroyed; and fearing the Lord should take notice under so many Intimations of his returning mercy, we should be found an Insensible people, as not standing before Him with Thanksgiving, as well as lading him with our Complaints in the time of pressing Afflictions:

The Council has thought meet to appoint and set apart the 29th day of this instant June, as a day of Solemn Thanksgiving and praise to God for such his Goodness and Favour, many Particulars of which mercy might be Instanced, but we doubt not those who are sensible of God's Afflictions, have been as diligent to espy him returning to us; and that the Lord may behold us as a People offering Praise and thereby glorifying Him; the Council doth commend it to the Respective Ministers, Elders and people of this Jurisdiction; Solemnly and seriously to keep the same Beseeching that being persuaded by the mercies of God we may all, even this whole people offer up our bodies and souls as a living and acceptable Service unto God by Jesus Christ.

Poem from A Ballad-maker's Pack, 1921, by Arthur Guiterman, 1871-1943

The First Thanksgiving Day
Boston, 1631

The curse of Cain was on the earth;
  The leaden heavens frowned;
The Winter closed with cruel dearth
  And gripped the fruitless ground.

Behind us rose the somber wood,
  Before us stretched the foam -
A thousand leagues of briny flood
  That sundered us from Home.

The meager mussel was our meat;
  We robbed the squirrel's hoard;
Our barren glebe beneath our feet,
  We cried upon the Lord.

"Arouse your souls against despair,"
  The godly Winthrop said,
"And chuse a day of fast and prayer;
  For surely, He who led

"Our wanderings across the wave
  Shall hear us when we plead,
And stretch a mighty arm to save
  His people in their need."

Behold! when all is bleak and drear
  And want assails the land,
How God delighteth to appear
  To work with wondrous hand!

For, even as we made to deal
  To one that hungered sore
The utmost handful of our meal,
  A shout arose from shore.

An hundred watching eyes descried
  Through Winter's misty pall
The good ship Lion breast the tide
  With provender for all.

Then joined the voice of first and least
  A hymn of thanks to raise;
Our day of Fasting changed to Feast
  And Prayer gave way to Praise.

So, once in every year we throng,
  Upon a day apart,
To praise the Lord with feast and song
  In thankfulness of heart.