Unheralded Blessings

The more the times tighten around us, the more sharply gratitude cuts through the haze, revealing itself as necessary breath.

Fairness is never promised, justice does not roll in on its own, and love does not grow wild in the field; it must be sown and tended.

These are gifts of God, placed into our hands through other fragile, faltering hands, and, being gifts, they can be withheld, or even refused.

We confess that such gifts often reach us

wrapped in sacrifice and quiet sorrow— in unearned forgiveness, in courage that stands between danger and the vulnerable, in lives risked so another may keep on living.

What looks like simple kindness is often paid for with a wound we cannot see.

Democracy trembles when neglected, community stretches far beyond the borders of maps, and family reaches past bloodlines and last names. These, too, are holy trusts, rooted in the deep soil of loyalty and promise, watered by small, stubborn acts of kindness.

They endure only when we choose—again and again— to live from the noblest part of our humanity instead of bowing to the pull of our lesser selves.

Blessed are those who believe in us when the story about us is tangled and unkind. Those who turn their backs on rumors, who welcome our contradictions as part of our beauty, are rare and radiant gifts. Their presence in our lives is a grace we could never earn and dare not assume.

So yes, we thank you for bread on the table, for shelter, for work, for every material mercy.

But deeper still, O God, we thank you for the strange and hidden mercies of grace— for blessings that come when the cup overflows and when it runs nearly dry. In fullness or in famine, let “thank you” be the language of our breathing.

In that spirit of reverent gratitude, let us lift our hearts in prayer: Sovereign God, receive our praise, receive our thanksgiving, and teach us to live as if every good thing has passed through your hands to reach our own.