One of My Favorite Prayers

After my life figuratively blew up in 1992, I found the St. Francis of Assisi prayer in a prayer book I bought at a yard sale. After reading it, I carefully wrote the prayer inside the cover of my "Twenty-Four Hours A Day" meditation book and prayed it every day for the first year of my sobriety. 

The words in this prayer help me to change my attitude toward others and it helps me to let go of anger. 

Whenever my day seems out of balance, simply reading the St. Francis Prayer puts things back into perspective for me. My focus turns away from negative thinking after reading the prayer. A positive attitude returns and my day looks brighter. This prayer is a powerful part of my healing and recovery journey. SalleeB

Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace!

That where there is hatred, I may bring love.
That where there is wrong, I may bring the spirit of forgiveness.
That where there is discord, I may bring harmony.
That where there is error, I may bring truth.
That where there is doubt, I may bring faith.
That where there is despair, I may bring hope.
That where there are shadows, I may bring light.
That where there is sadness, I may bring joy.

Lord, grant that I may seek rather to comfort, than to be comforted.
To understand, than to be understood.
To love, than to be loved.

For it is by self-forgetting that one finds.
It is by forgiving that one is forgiven.
It is by dying that one awakens to Eternal Life.

—Saint Francis of Assisi—