Birthday week prayer

Dear LORD,

Thank You for today.

Thank You for the many gifts You've given me today and throughout this week already, it being my birth-week. Have you given me more blessings this week because it's my birth week? Or have You allowed me to be more present to the blessings You give every week now because it's my birth week? Or both?

Thank You for the visit of my sister from Vermont this week and for giving us both time to be with each other to talk and to listen. Please bless her and her family. Please give her strength to bear the sacrifices she makes, even in the sacrifices she doesn't want to have made.  It's been so hard for her, LORD, for so many years. Just like, but so different from, me. Please, can You give her time in the Sun to bathe in Your Joy? You didn't for Blessed Mother Teresa, but Beki isn't her, Beki's my little sis, and it'd be a nice birthday present for me: her joy in the rest from the weight of her burdens and responsibilities so she can be a kid for a while, having never been one.

Please watch over my family as they recover from the 'flu, and all families as they struggle, and by Your Grace, recover from illness.

Please let me be productive, kind, attentive, and caring.

I ask all these things in the Name of Jesus, the Christ.

Amen.