Prayer for the New Year

God of our yesterdays, our todays, and our tomorrows.
We praise you for your unequaled greatness.
Thank you for the year behind us and for the year ahead.
Help us in this new year, Father, to fret less and laugh more.
To teach our children to laugh by laughing with them.
To teach others to love by loving them.
Help us, Father, to hear your love song in every sunrise,
in the chirping of birds in our backyards,
in the stories of our old folks,
and the fantasies of our children.
Help us to stop and listen to your love songs,
so that we may know you better and better.
We rejoice in the world you called into being.
Thank you for another new year and for new chances every day.
We pray for peace, for light, and for hope,
that we might spread them to others.
Forgive us for falling short this past year.
We leave the irreparable past in your hands, and step out into the
future of an unknown new year knowing you will go with us.
We accept your gift of a new year and we rejoice in what’s ahead,
depending on you to help us to love others as you have loved us.
In Jesus’s name we pray,
Amen.