As the nation prepares to go to the voting booth in what has been an incredibly contentious election season, we’re looking back at the prayers of former presidents.
Just six days before he was assassinated, President John F. Kennedy delivered a Thanksgiving proclamation to the American people. It was a Prayer of Gratitude.
Here’s what he wrote in that official declaration; “Let us therefore proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings–let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals–and let us resolve to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings throughout the world.
On that day let us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God; and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice, and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and suffering wherever they exist.
He also recalled the first observances of Thanksgiving when America’s forefathers set aside a time to give thanks to God. “On the appointed day, they gave reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together and for the faith which united them with their God.”