I translated the following prayer into English after receiving a Spanish email version from a Panamanian friend. I felt it to be comforting, inspiring, and uplifting. Wishing all those who read it a similar response.
Dear Lord God, ruler of time and eternity… today, tomorrow, the past and the future all belong to you. As this year is ending, I wish to give thanks for everything that I’ve received from you. Thank you for life, love, flowers, food, air, sun, moon, happiness, pain, for what was possible and for that which could not be.
Everything I did this year I offer up to you; ---the work I accomplished, the things that passed through my hands & what I was able to create or achieve with them. In your presence, I acknowledge the people with whom I’ve shared all these months---new friends, old loves, close friends & family, those I see infrequently; those that have lent me a helping hand, and those whom I was able to help,---people who have shared my life, my work, my pain and my joy.
But also Lord, I want to ask your forgiveness for my flaws---for lost time, for money ill-spent, for unhelpful spoken words, for loving acts of kindness ungraciously received or un-acknowledged. Please forgive my empty labors, my badly produced works, and all the time I spent living without enthusiasm. Pardon me also for this rambling prayer that just seeks to incorporate all my oversights, carelessness and omissions. Again I ask your pardon.
I desire to live every day of this coming new year with optimism and kindness, bringing with me everywhere a heart filled with understanding, compassion, and peace. Lord please close my ears to all untruths, and stop my lips from expressing lies, selfishness, and spitefulness. Open my being to all that is good, so that my spirit can be full with blessings that pour forth with every step that I take. Fill me up with kindness, empathy, and happiness so that I can share these with people I live with or people I interact with, such that they recognize a part of YOU and Your influence on my life.
Within a few days we will be initiating a brand new year. I hold my future days in limbo, awaiting the new calendar yet to be initiated, and present them to You , as You are the only one who knows if I will arrive to live them.
I ask for my family, myself, and for my friends, that God grant us all peace, happiness, health, strength, prudence, humility, and knowledge. Almighty God, please grant us a year replete with blessings, and teach us how to spread happiness.
Amen
