Closing Prayer of 2018

As the year comes to a close, I felt the desire to praise God and share it with you. Here goes:

Dear God,

I love you. I adore you. I praise you. I thank you for all the blessings you’ve given me this year. For good health news, for myself and others. For having a job. For having a good church community. For being alive.

But I also need to praise you for the dark moments, don’t I? For the feelings of worthlessness. For the anxiety. For the worry. For the endless battles with OCD. I know you do not enjoy it when I go through pain. I know you do not like to see me troubled and upset. But it’s necessary, isn’t it? Necessary to my growth and for my relationship with you. So God I praise you for all the broken moments this past year has held, and I pray that you carry me through all the broken moments I know are coming next year.

My God, I love you. And you are what I want most for Christmas. Though we both know this isn’t true all the time. There is doubt. There are moments of infatuation with other, lesser, gods. Not all of them bad. Not in themselves. But when they take the place of you, anything is evil.

Once again my God, I love you. And I know you love me back. Help me to remember that when I go through my darkest nights.

Amen. 

P.S. Some of these thoughts are influenced by Larry Crabb’s Shattered Dreams. I suggest you pick up a copy if anything in this prayer speaks to you.

Also, I would love if you would post your own prayer for the end of 2018/beginning of 2019 in the comments.