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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with The Rt Revd Dr Jo Bailey Wells, Bishop of Dorking

Good Morning.

It’s new year’s eve. No Hogmanay, no fireworks - just another quiet night in, all bubbled up.

I wonder how you’ll make it special. I have a proposal: that around the supper table or over Zoom with loved ones, you do some intentional sharing and listening. What was the hardest moment of 2020? What was the best? The more honesty and heart-searching the better, as you look back and work out: for what am I thankful?
The harder that feels, perhaps the more important to try. When life serves up stones, we work on a rock garden. We’ve had to dig deeper: savouring the sunset; focusing on a flower. Where are the blessings amid scarcity and struggle? As we sharpen our recognition, so our lives are shaped by thankfulness.

And so I invite you to join with me in a very old prayer of ‘general thanksgiving’. It’s been voiced down the ages, through pandemics and famine and war – voicing thanks, no matter what.

ALMIGHTY God, Father of all mercies, we thine unworthy servants do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for all thy goodness and loving-kindness to us and to all. We bless thee for our creation, preservation, and all the blessings of this life; but above all for thine inestimable love in the redemption of the world by our Lord Jesus Christ, for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory. And we beseech thee, give us that due sense of all thy mercies, that our hearts may be unfeignedly thankful, and that we shew forth thy praise, not only with our lips, but in our lives; by giving up ourselves to thy service, and by walking before thee in holiness and righteousness all our days; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom with thee and the Holy Ghost be all honour and glory, world without end.

Amen.