When I was in my early 30’s, married and with two young children, I struggled to pay off each month my bills. That was especially the case with medical bills. One was so large that I had to make small monthly payments. Dorothy and I had built a home. We borrowed the maximum amount we could qualify for to obtain a construction loan and later the mortgage. The mortgage had an interest rate of 9 ¼% per year. Having the big monthly mortgage payment along with property taxes and homeowners’ insurance premiums drained our finances.

The stress of overpaying debts takes its toll on those who carry that burden. The inability to pay one’s bills on time is downright embarrassing.

As I fretted over my embarrassment that the large healthcare bill could not be paid promptly, I received a note from the provider. That note, recreated above, read, “Dear Jack and Dorothy, I know that you are having trouble paying my bill. I know what it feels like to have a debt forgiven when times are tough. I am writing off your debt to me. You owe nothing on it anymore. I hope this helps you. I feel good about this and wish you both well.”

As I read the note my eyes became wet with relief, with joy, and in thanksgiving for the unrequested forgiveness of my debt. Forgiveness blesses both the one who forgives and the one forgiven. I have never forgotten that gesture of forgiveness.

I am certain that many of you have received the forgiveness of a debt. If you have asked for it and received it, you no doubt have never forgotten the feeling of it. If you received forgiveness without even requesting it, the feeling of relief and peace within you is magnified tenfold.

In my divorce practice on several occasions, I have paid it forward by following my healthcare provider’s example. I wrote a note to one client who had hired me in a divorce in which custody was a serious issue. One of her children was severely disabled. During the divorce, she lost her job. In dealing with her husband’s antics and improper actions towards the children, more than $80,000 in attorney’s fee bills were incurred. Payment was past due. My note to her said nothing was owed on the outstanding bills. In a collaborative divorce, my client had incurred far more in legal fees than she could afford to pay. Those fees of over $20,000 were written off. Neither client had asked for forgiveness. Yet, it was given.

God made possible the forgiveness of our sins. We did not ask God to sacrifice His Son so that we would receive forgiveness. Because of God, every one of us receives forgiveness when we ask God to forgive us. If God grants us forgiveness, don’t we, as His children, need to grant forgiveness to one another?

Today’s prayer is a prayer for forgiveness of debts and the debt of forgiveness. Forgiving a debt may be difficult. Forgiving a wrong, an injury or breach of trust, may seem insurmountable. Out of the question.

To the glory of God, when someone asks you to forgive a wrong they have done to you, should you not act as God has done? Even if the wrong doer may have too much pride to ask you to forgive him or her, would God be pleased if you forgave them anyway? We each owe that to God, don’t we? That is a debt we owe God by treating our brothers and sisters in His way.

God has spoken in Scripture as to forgiveness.

Matthew 6:14

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.

Let us pray:

Dear God, my heart is struggling to forgive others who need my forgiveness. Please help me in prayer to follow Your gracious example of granting forgiveness to me.

God, please help me to let go of my bitterness and resentment toward those whom I should forgive in the path of Your grace and glory.

God, please grant me the wisdom to forgive the debts and wrongs of others as You have forgiven me.

God, Your forgiveness is the gift of Your grace for which I am eternally thankful. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo credit: Ibelieve.com

As I end 2022 and begin a New Year, I am thankful for the many blessings I received last year.

As an author, the words and prayers I wrote were not mine. The words flowed from the Author of all creation.

To the thousands of you in America who read, commented on, and shared my weekly prayers I was and am touched beyond measure by you.

When I had the big storm of polio, I knew early on that God had a plan to use my personal catastrophe for good. To God, a catastrophe is a terrible thing to waste.

You and I can endure the big storms in life if we know God in our prayers calms all storms. All crises. Every tragedy.

As we know by faith, even the painful sacrifice by God of His only begotten Son had an ultimate purpose. That purpose was to make human death become just the beginning of a new life with God in eternity. To make possible the forgiveness of our sins.

Don’t we all get caught up in the big storms of life? We lose dear friends. We get fired or let go from our jobs. Someone betrays our deep trust in marriage or in a business relationship. 50% of all marriages experience divorce. Currently, some who have saved for retirement have lost 30% of their retirement savings.

We get so worried about a child or grandchild struggling with addiction or depression we cannot sleep or think about anything else.

Parents helplessly watch a child being treated at MD Anderson Cancer Center.

To each of you, I say there is truly one God and one thing we can do that results in finding calm inside the big storms of life. Storms as big as the one on the football field on Monday night, January 2, 2023. The one thing fellow players, 50,000 stadium fans, and millions of people did in unison around the world when Damar Hamlin’s heart suddenly stopped beating.

They prayed.

Since I was 32, I have meditated. After meditating, I pray to God. I tell God about all my troubles. All my worries. At the end of my praying, I open my eyes. Like being in the eye of a hurricane, there is peace. I feel calm inside the big storms of my life.

I do have a New Year’s Resolution to share with you. My resolution is to keep spending the ten hours each week writing and posting the prayers. In this way may I help each of you find the peace which passeth all understanding.

You and I cannot avoid the storms of life. But with prayer, peace will calm us. If we navigate the big storms of life with prayer, we can sail into peace and the loving arms of God.

God has spoken in Scripture as to finding peace in prayer.

John 16:33
I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Let us pray.
Dear God, currently I struggle in dealing with many of my troubles. In my faith, I know that You are present with me in every storm in my life.

God, please help me to surrender to You the storms which are far too heavy for me to deal with on my own.

God, please strengthen my faith in You that You have a divine plan for me. In Your time what is bad will be transformed into good for me and those I love.

God, I am thankful that in prayer I can always find and feel the calm inside the big storms in my life because of Your care and grace. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Being six, paralyzed, and in Hedgecroft Hospital away from my family was no way to prepare for Christmas. Despite my fears that I would celebrate Christmas in the hospital, Dr. Cameron Montgomery said I could go home on a two-day pass.

At home on Christmas morning, Dad carried me downstairs clad in my pajamas. He set me on the floor by the Christmas tree. My brother, Charles, and sister, Carolyn, took turns passing me the gifts Santa Claus left for me. The prior Christmas I had been given a bicycle I could no longer ride. That did not matter anymore. What mattered was being home with my family again.

After opening presents, Mom prepared a breakfast of pancakes, sausage, and orange juice. Gone were the smells of medicine, bedpans, and soiled sheets.

Prior to our yearly Emmott Family Christmas at my grandparents’ home, Mother dressed me. She put on my brown orthopedic shoes. Brown corduroy pants and a long-sleeved Sears flannel shirt. No belt.

Dad drove me over to my grandparents’ large white Cape Cod-style home built in 1937 in the center of Emmottville’s 100 acres. I sat alongside my many cousins and 16 aunts and uncles. My grandfather had cut down a pine tree that was adorned with lights, ornaments, and garland. To me, the Christmas tree looked as bright and as beautiful as the Bethlehem Star must have appeared to the Three Wisemen.

After four months of rehabilitation, I could stand alone for a few minutes (as portrayed in this Christmas photograph taken that day). But I could not walk well. Dad asked me if I wanted to show everyone my progress in learning to walk again. I agreed with a smile. Dad lifted me to my feet. Mom knelt in front of me. I took a couple of steps and fell forward toward the floor. Mom caught me in her arms.

Looking back decades later, I have learned we are all God’s fallen falling creatures at times in our lives. At those times, especially at Christmas, when others fall, we should all do our part to catch them with arms of love and acceptance as my mom did me. Sometimes that is the only thing we can do to serve God and celebrate the blessings and joy of Christmas. Can’t we all make room in the inn of our hearts to do that for our brothers and sisters?

I don’t recall the Christmas gifts I received from under the tree that year. The presents didn’t matter to me. The presence of love from my family and from God was the true gift that mattered. The loving care my mother took to catch me when I fell. The kind of love born in a manger in Bethlehem on the first Christmas for humankind. The love of God catches all His children when they are broken, sick, or have lost a loved one, or like me in a hospital paralyzed at the age of six.

The Advent darkness of polio I experienced before I came home on my two-day hospital pass disappeared. At home that Christmas, as I sat with my family by the Christmas tree, the light of God’s love descended on me. God illumined the joy in my heart that I had not seen as a patient with polio. That holy light I experienced that Christmas day still shines in me and in all I strive to do until I strive no more.

God has spoken in Scripture of witnessing the Bethlehem Star.

Matthew 2:10
When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceeding great joy.

Let us pray together.
Dear God, it is true that I enjoy the gift of getting and giving things. Yet, the gifts of Your love and acceptance of me are the things I treasure every day, not just Christmas.

God, I thank You for the birth of Your son, Jesus. In the manger under the Bethlehem Star, more than a child was born. Born were Your love for me and all creation. Born was the gift that transforms death into eternal life. The light that reveals the unseen beauty and meaning within dark passages of life and the living of it. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

After completing a lengthy collaborative divorce mediation, I drove home from Alvin Zimmerman’s office past the Christmas lights that lined Post Oak Boulevard. I felt I had just witnessed the parting of the Red Sea. With my own eyes, I witnessed a miracle of sorts. A sacred place where peace was more important than perfection.

Alvin Zimmerman, a truly great mediator with a kind, insightful endearing heart, presided in a masterful way to bring about a peaceable settlement between the parties. Like you and me, the husband and the wife each had imperfections and resentments towards the other. Likewise, they each had perfectly good gifts and qualities God had given them.  Just when the skies of negotiation grew dim and it looked like it would take a miracle to bring about a settlement–a miracle appeared. The light of God’s love shined down from above and showered all with heavenly peace.

I have litigated divorces and child custody cases for over 40 years. I learned from the beginning that often the primary focus of litigation is blame, finding fault in the other spouse.  As a divorce attorney, I have seen a parent humiliated and belittled after losing a custody case. His or her imperfections were magnified in court. I felt bad about that. We all know that none of us are our worst acts. That we are all God’s perfectly imperfect creatures.

I still accept litigated divorces and child custody cases. But, thanks to collaborative divorce in Texas, I can focus on solutions and not blame in a private family-centered resolution process. Dignity and respect rule the day and even at night in Alvin Zimmerman’s office.  I believe if divorce happens, God favors dignity and respect over blame and incivility. I believe God would have all His children prefer peace over perfection.

Yesterday, peace prevailed over perfection. The collaborative divorce lawyers, the collaborative professionals in finance and mental health, the husband and wife and their child had their hearts filled with peace, peace which mirrors that which was born on Christmas day. Alvin Zimmerman has another reason for his calling to light the candles on his Menorah as part of his celebration of Hannukah.

God has spoken in Scripture about peace and imperfections.

Isaiah 59:2
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

John 14:27
Peace I leave you, My peace I give you; not as the world gives, do I give to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled, nor fearful.

Let us pray together.

Dear God, I know that I am Your perfectly imperfect child. In prayer, please guide my heart to see the good qualities and actions of others and not their imperfections, faults, and flaws of character.

God, please forgive me for judging others and diminishing their worth to me and to You as all of Your children are equally loved by You.

God, please help me to identify and accept my own faults. In doing so I will receive Your blessing. In that blessing, I can find compassion for others. Beauty inside myself and others. Instead of my life being centered on imperfections and blaming others, I can solely focus on happiness and Your heavenly peace.

God, I thank You for forgiving my shortcomings. I am grateful that the strength of Your love for me exceeds my weaknesses. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist
Photo credit: Justa Jeskova

Photo credit: StudiesWeekly.com

Not only does God give you life. God gives you hope and dreams. God granted you the gifts inside you to be brave. To step out of your comfort zone. To make your dreams come true. Dreams are not just in Hollywood or on the big screen. Dreams are in you.

You may feel small and insignificant compared to others. Yet to God, you are big. God has plans for you to be bigger than you are today. Much more spiritually developed and accomplished with each passing day in your life and walk of faith.

One of my prelaw professors at the University of Houston during my junior year told me I did not have the ability to become an attorney. He told me that after a poor result on my first exam. How did I respond? I dropped the prelaw class. My dream of becoming a lawyer was too big to remain in the presence of a small-minded dream killer.

I was in a rock band during my senior year in high school and my first year of college. The band let me go as its keyboard player as they felt (because of my polio) I could not master songs well enough for the band to succeed.

Instead of wallowing in self-pity or acting like an innocent victim, I called KILT Radio’s legendary DJ, Bob White. KILT was sponsoring a competition among 200 band entries to win a recording contract. Through Bob White, I got the name of another band that had no keyboard player. I auditioned and was asked to join the band, Beau Geste. Shortly after, I found myself at Houston’s Downtown Music Hall with nine other bands as the finalists competing for that coveted recording contract. We did not win the contest. My band, Beau Geste, ended up being the third runner-up out of 200.

The members of my former band never made it to the final competition. They did come backstage to congratulate me and the band. Even though they let me go from the band and it hurt me badly, each one of them has remained my good friend to this day.

Here is a poem I wrote that led to writing this prayer.

What is a long shot?
Are the brave rewarded?
A boy is paralyzed with polio at age six.
He goes to law school.
He becomes an attorney.
He marries the angel God sends him.
A boy exits being in the iron lung at night after five years.
He and his bride have kids and grandkids.
He helps hundreds of husbands and wives navigate divorce in a peaceable compassionate way.
He is now the best self he has ever been.
He prays.
He writes songs and books.
That is a long shot.
How is that possible?
That is possible as he received the reward for bravery.
Love.
That boy is me.
So, now I lead with love in all things.
I lead with love in all circumstances.
I lead with love for all people.
So be brave.
Take your long shots.
Just love.

God has spoken in Scripture about being brave and pursuing your dreams.

2 Chronicles 15:7
But you, take courage! Do not let your hands be weak, for your work shall be rewarded.

Jeremiah 29:11
For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

Let us pray together.

Dear God, I have many hopes and dreams within me that I want to live out and accomplish. I am afraid my dreams will never come true or I will fail to make them a reality.

God, in prayer please strengthen me and encourage me to step out of my comfort zone to pursue the dreams that dwell within the gifts You have given me as Your child.

God, I am thankful that You have taken a long shot on me (and all Your children) to make the best out of the blessings You have given me.

God, even if I fail or succeed in accomplishing my dreams, I am forever thankful that Your love for me is never in doubt or uncertain. It is that love that is the greatest reward I could ever receive for being brave and taking long shots in my life in Your name. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.

Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo credit: Promises.com

Just how many holidays or other special occasions have you attended which have been spoiled by the excessive consumption of alcohol? Someone (or maybe you) has too much to drink. Social inhibitions are loosened. For some, the result is becoming the jovial jokester of the party or the huggable Teddy Bear. But the spoiler is the one who has the Jekyll and Hyde switch which gets turned on by liquor.

What is left in the aftermath of the monster who suddenly appears from the shadows of light at the party is every bit as devastating as a dark decimated Oklahoma town in Tornado Alley. It may take years to rebuild what was lost or maybe restoration is not possible at all.

Research has established that there is a reciprocal relationship between excessive alcohol use and violence. Research suggests that alcohol use may promote aggressiveness while victims of the violence may be led to drinking more following physical harm. Studies show that the more a person drinks, the more severe violence may become.

It only takes one experience to know that once the drunk Genie comes out of the liquor bottle, it is impossible to control or reason with the Genie. The father, mother, aunt or uncle, son or daughter, cousin, relative, or friend becomes the monster you never want to see or be with again for the rest of your life.

As a collaborative divorce attorney, I have had clients whose marriages end because they or their spouses are unable to stay sober. I have had a good number of clients who, in order to stay sober, can no longer stay married to a spouse who drinks or expects the spouse in recovery to go to functions where others drink. It is hard for the one whose social activities have been centered around alcohol to sacrifice that for the other spouse.

Sadly, in order to stay sober, the one in recovery cannot be with extended family at Christmas, Fourth of July, reunions, and birthday parties. Attending will sabotage all efforts to maintain sobriety. Non-sober spouses feel like they are no longer married to their best friend. Where have they gone besides an AA Meeting? The conflict, the loss, and the inability to give up alcohol results in divorce.

One of my clients (the wife) was told by her husband, “I don’t even know you since you’ve gone sober on me.” In the collaborative divorce process the team of professionals, especially the mental healthcare professional, was able to approach the divorce in a therapeutic manner. The couple divorced, remained friends, and effective co-parents. Life did not end with the death of the marriage.

God has spoken in Scripture.
Thessalonians 5:6-8.
So then, let us not be like others, who are asleep, but let us be awake and sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night, and those who get drunk, get drunk at night. But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

Let us pray.

Dear God, please help all those who strive to be sober to remain sober one day at a time, not just on holidays or special occasions, but every day.

God, if I have an addiction now or if I develop one in the future, please empower me to seek help, not only from You but from AA and others You’ve placed before me in Your grace.

God, please grant forgiveness to those who have been harmed or injured because of addiction.

God, in the darkness of addiction, please shine the Your Light upon the addicted and the afflicted.

God, in Your Holy Grace, lift all those who dwell in the despairing place of addiction. The only power stronger than addiction is the power of Your love. Let that power reign on Earth as it does in Heaven. Amen.

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist

Photo credit: madalynsklar.com

I woke up this morning with a thankful heart. Yet, I lacked the inspiration or the material to write a prayer for Thanksgiving. Then, I received the following message from The Rev. Stuart A. Bates, Rector of St. Francis Episcopal Church – Houston. Father Bates’s message is exquisite. It is so simple yet profound that I include his words for you to contemplate today.

Father Bates’s Message:

“We know we should be thankful, and more so on the day of thanks called Thanksgiving.

We often seek to pause and remember all our blessings and the things we have. As a cultural child of the 60s and 70s acquiring more things was good for families and the economy!

A thought has swept into my mind, and I share it with you. What if this Thanksgiving Day, instead of giving thanks for the things we have, we give thanks for Who we have? A refocus might be in order away from things–toward Who is with us.

This Thanksgiving may we give thanks for Jesus, the presence of God with us.

Jesus Christ is always with us, closer than we may think or experience. Hopefully, we know this not only in our heads but in our hearts. Jesus is with us in our homes, at our work, and in our family gatherings. And yes, Jesus is present in the depths of relationships that don’t seem to work or are strained and even in relationships that seem to be a lost cause. Jesus is still there. Jesus is with us in rejoicing and weeping, in victories and sufferings. Jesus is with us and that is the real Blessing to give thanks for.

As we give thanks to Jesus for his faithful loving presence with us today may we also remember the poor, the broken, the marginalized, those in prison, and even those who suffer from their own sins and desperately need healing, and a warm hand of connection.

Jesus says to each of us, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come into you and eat with you, and you with me.” (Rev. 3:20)

This Thanksgiving with great thankfulness open the door to Jesus and dine with him.

Giving thanks for each of you and with love in Christ. Rev. Stuart A. Bates”

Let us pray together.

Dear God, I thank You for being with me along with Your light, love, and spirit in me every single day

God, I thank You for those in my life, like Father Bates is for Jack, who show me the way, the truth, and the light not just on Thanksgiving Day but in my waking and my sleeping, from my first breath until my last heartbeat–until I sit at Your Table thankfully feasting forever on Your heavenly peace. Amen

If you think Jack’s prayer helps you or will help someone you know, please forward it to them. Jack may never make millions selling books or writing prayers, but spreading God’s good news to others is reward enough for him.
Ann Boland, Jack’s Publicist