A Prayer and Blessing for 2022
by Sarah Bessey
May the God of hope and faith, be with us in this coming year.
May you take the time today to look back over your year and honor those days and the person you were in them. As I said last year, everything sad won’t come untrue in 2022 and this year will hold its own tragedies and sorrows. We’ll relearn lament and fight for joy.
May we say good-bye to the things that do not serve us - the selfishness, the fear, the illusions of control, the bitterness, the doom-scrolling, the self-pity, the martyr complex, the us-and-them fire stokers - and say hello to wisdom, to kindness, to justice, curiosity, wonder, goodness, generosity, possibility, peace making.
May we throw open the doors of our lives to the disruptive, wild, healing Holy Spirit. May this be a year of unclenched hands and new songs, of good food and some laughter, of kind endings and new beginnings. May we be given a mustard seed of faith, it will be enough to notice and name what you love in particular about your life as it stands.
We may not see an end to the pandemic. We may not see the great changes we hope for, at least on grand scales. I do pray for it though. I dare to pray for it. May God bless and keep those working to keep us safe and healthy. We pray and we work towards it but my prayer for you is that those realities, those challenges, these powers and principalities that rule in our world still, will not reduce you or twist you.
Instead, may you rise to the demands of our time with dignity, grace, and not-sitting-down-not-shutting-
It is precisely in these moments, in this wilderness, in this apocalypse, that we need to be rooted in the love of God. May our roots go down deep into that marvellous Love. May you bear the fruit of the Spirit - that love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control - right in the teeth of despair and brokenness. I pray that your life will become an outpost of hope and love. May the things that were meant to destroy us be cast down and come to nothing. May you rise from the ashes with a grin, a wild heart that won’t be talked out of love and possibility.
May 2022 bring you unexpected goodness and hope. May you light a candle in the dark night and tend that flame, set it high in a window, let the world see that you are not undone, not yet. In fact, I pray for love - however that looks and however it comes - for you this year. Lashings of love, love that covers you and holds you, love that restores you and blesses you.
May we release our efforts to save ourselves and to save the world, resting in God’s good salvation, more than enough salvation. May new strength come to you in your sleep and in the stars. May you endure well. May your life be peaceful and whole from the inside out.
I pray for gentleness in you and for you this year. May you see the goodness of God in your actual days. May you be given wisdom and joy, may you walk in truth and justice. I pray for cold water when you are parched, for warmth when you are cold, for a hand to hold when you are lonely, for the steady and abiding presence of God in the night.
I bless you. I bless you for the work God has given you to do. I bless you for the ways you have loved this year, for the resolute faithfulness of you. I bless the unseen and uncelebrated ways you have done your bit to repair the world. I bless your resilience and your suffering, I bless how you have forgiven and released and welcomed this year. I bless the work you do and pray that you find God’s good rhythm there.
As we turn towards a new year, may the God of all goodness and hope walk with you on this road, singing as we make our way home. May you be welcomed in this new year with joy and rest.
And may you greet 2022 with courage and grace, knowing and resting and abiding in your belovedness.
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