I have sung this song so many times on patriotic holidays; I’m sure you have as well. Today, I want to do more than sing the words. I want to pray the words which wonderfully voice a prayer our country so desperately needs. Won’t you pray it with me?

O beautiful for spacious skies, for amber waves of grain.

 

For purple mountains majesties above the fruited plain!

 

America, America! God shed His grace on thee,

 

And crown they good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!

 

 

O beautiful for pilgrim feet, whose stern, impassioned stress

 

A thoroughfare for freedom beat across the wilderness.

 

America! America! God mend thine every flaw,

 

Confirm they soul in self-control, thy liberty in law!

 

 

O beautiful for heroes proved in liberating strife.

 

Who more than self their country loved, and mercy more than life!

 

America! America! May God thy gold refine.

 

Till all success be nobleness and every gain divine!

 

 

O beautiful for patriot dream that sees beyond the years

 

Thine alabaster cities gleam, undimmed by human tears.

 

America! America! God shed His grace on thee.

 

And crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea!