For Use By Those at School

J.H. Garrison wrote a little-known but classic devotional guide. Today's Lent reflection comes from this book. Our gratitude to Leafwood Publishers and Gary Holloway, who edited this book, for this excerpt. Garrison's book includes some really cool prayers for different occasions. Granted, this is also done in the Episcopal "Book of Common Prayer" style and this is not unique, but for those of us who struggle with words in prayer and need helpful guides and ideas for blessings and words to pray, this is a welcome prayer for those in school (if not a little dated, but that adds to its charm and unique voice for us today).

For Use by Those at School

A prayer by J.H. Garrison
From Alone with God

O God of all wisdom, grace and truth, I thank you that you have given me the desire for knowledge and some capacity for acquiring it.

Help me to be faithful and diligent in all my studies, respectful and obedient to my teachers, gentle and courteous to my fellow students, and to strive so to behave myself as to be a good example for others. While I am seeking mental improvement, and that intellectual training that will fit me for my work in life, grant, I beseech you, heavenly Father, that I may not neglect my moral and spiritual culture, without which all knowledge is vain.

Help me to keep in loving memory my parents to whom I am indebted for these privileges, and to cherish fondly the precepts and instruction I have received at their hand. Help me to compensate them in some measure for the anxiety and loneliness that my absence from home may occasion, by the manner in which I behave myself at school, and the progress I make in my studies.

O you great Teacher, who are meek and lowly in heart, will you assist me in all my efforts to improve my mind and strengthen my character in virtue, to the end that I may serve you acceptably here, and enjoy your presence forever.

For your name's sake: Amen!