Heavenly Father I praise You for working in my life and for the lessons I have learned. I praise You that in June I will have been married for 34 years to my beautiful wife. I praise You that I have slowly learned to love and how to be loved. I appreciate the lessons to understand that love is more than an abstract concept but a honest to goodness effort that must come from deep within my being.
Your word says, “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, endures all things.” [1Corinthians 13:4-7] Holy Spirit continue to prompt me, give me wisdom and understanding on how to demonstrate love with patience, and kindness, to be selfless, humble, polite, and considerate of the feelings of those whom I love and those I need to love. Help me to learn to forgive, forget, and move on. I understand that all sin, and all hurt have lasting earthly consequences, but they do not need to extend to the eternal. Most of the Holy Spirit give me the strength to bear and endure all the things that I must face in life so that at the end of my life I will be known for my integrity and my love. I need no more than to be known for those two things. Help me to be ready to kneel before You and be able to give an account that I loved with all that I am to whom You wanted me to demonstrate love to.
Praise be to You, God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed me in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For He chose me in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined me to be adopted as his son through Jesus, in accordance with His pleasure and will—to the praise of His glorious grace, which he has freely given me in the One he loves. In Him I have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on me with all wisdom and understanding. And He made known to me the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. In Him I was also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will, in order that I, who has the first to hope in Christ, might be for the praise of His glory. And I also was included in Christ when I heard the word of truth, the gospel of my salvation. Having believed, I am marked in Him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing my inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. Amen. Ephesians 1:3-14