Today is a monumental milestone in this year for me around the sun as I turn 65. The number means less to me than government health coverage, but it also stands as an indicator of the amount I’ve experienced and learned over the years. This year my prayers for you involve hope. While the hope I pray for may be limited to my understanding of it, I pray I do you justice during these often troubled times and that the gesture itself brings you hope.

I pray for an association of trusted and loving individuals to surround and embrace you, ones that will emboldened you to share the unique gift that you are to the world. When we are at our best, the world shines brighter and encourages all you interact with. Never underestimate the power of a ripple.

I pray that you love unrestricted by a form and function so narrowly restricted by society, and that the power of that unrestricted love brings you hope. Love should never be defined by, and limited to societies’ comfort or ease, for true love is stronger than death and should shatter all who would try to limit its power by their faulty and fearful judgments. Love is the opposite of fear:

Love is patient, love is kind. It is not jealous, (love) is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude, it does not seek its own interests, it is not quick-tempered, it does not brood over injury, it does not rejoice over wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. If there are prophecies, they will be brought to nothing; if tongues, they will cease; if knowledge, it will be brought to nothing. For we know partially and we prophesy partially, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I used to talk as a child, think as a child, reason as a child; when I became an adult, I put aside childish things. At present we see indistinctly, as in a mirror, but then face to face. At present I know partially; then I shall know fully, as I am fully known. So faith, hope, love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I pray in any an all moments of trial and hopelessness, that you may know that God answers all prayers asked in goodness, and that with hope, faith and love all things are possible, even if it may not seem so at the time. Our sole perspective can be so limited to the small creatures that we are, but when connected to something greater, even a mountain can be moved.

I pray that your hope does not lie in retribution, lies, judgement and punishment for what you believe is wrong in the world, these are the true weapons of the dark. While fighting for justice, it is truth that will set us free, as well as doing what is right, loving goodness and walking humbly with God.

I pray that hope supersedes all the weights that inhibit your movement into the future whatever the challenges you experience, and that its guiding light can bring you the growing peace that you are never alone in this world, because with God, all things are possible. You are stronger than you know, rely on the gifts you have been given.

I pray that you know the world needs all of us right now. Never fall into the faulty belief that one voice does not matter. We are all of consequence and the world needs your voice. We are are challenged to nurture and bear fruit for the world we live in. Jesus condemned the fig tree that did not bear fruit. Keeping your voice to yourself is like a tree refusing to bear fruit. You were given a talent for a reason…use it.

Mostly, I pray and hope for fulfilling all of the above so we may all work together as parts of a greater whole, each doing our part to bring all our hopes to fruition.