A Prayer of Thanks for Another Year

Father, another candle, another year of mornings You let me wake to. Today I crossed into a new number, and I find I am less afraid of the age than grateful for the gift of more time.

I confess I have wasted some of the days You gave me. Worried away hours I will not get back, chased things that did not matter, postponed the joy I could have had right then.

So thank You for the patience that let me keep learning at my own slow pace. Thank You for the people who walked this whole year beside me, the lessons that cost me something real, the laughter that came free and surprised me, the doors that opened and even the ones You mercifully kept shut.

Your word says to teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom. Let this past year sit in me as actual wisdom, then, and not just as one more quiet turn around the sun that I forget by spring.

I do not know how many years are left to me, and I have made my peace with not needing to know. I only want to spend the ones I have well, loving the people in front of me more and clutching at control far less.

Thank You for another year of life. Make this next one count for something good. Amen.