November 28

Prayer of a distracted parent: Dear Lord, I love my children but they are driving me to distraction. I have lost my self-control. I need help. I realize, dear Lord, that I can never direct them in their young lives if I am disorganized. Help me not to be angry and not to shout at them. Give me a sense of humor. Help me to know that their restless energy is a sign of vitality and pan of their development. Don’t let me be tired and upset but rather enter joyfully into my relationship with them. Thank You for my children, Lord, but, don’t let them get me down. Amen.

November 25

Here is a prayer to help you to forgive: Lord, You tell us to forgive our enemies. This I want to do—or do I, really? But Lord, I do not know how to forgive—or is it that I just haven’t the moral strength to do so? Deliver me from nursing a grudge. Help me to want to forgive. Fill my mind with magnanimous thoughts. Make me bigger than I’ve been acting. Let me know the joy of forgiveness and reconciliation. The Bible says, “For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you” (Matthew 6:14). So please take my enemy off my hands. And I thank You that I find it in my heart to say, “Be good to him or her.” Amen.

November 10

A salesman was having trouble making sales, always afraid, forever whistling in the dark. An older salesman gave him a three-sentence prayer. The results were miraculous and his percentage of sales rose steadily. This is the prayer he used: “I believe I am always divinely guided. I believe I will be led always to take the right turn of the road. I believe that God will always make a way where there is no way.”