I don’t know about you, but there have been times in my spiritual life with God when I long for the rich prayers passed down in our Christian tradition. I enjoy praying prayers from The Book of Common Prayer with my community and family. Then there are other times when I pray more desperate, fleeting prayers. I long to hear God’s voice break through my disappointment, my confusion, my doubts, my questions, my darkness. I’ve collected six of those...
November 4, 2021
depression•discipleship•prayer•Uncategorized•waiting•weakness
Pocket Prayers Printable
October 1, 2020
anxiety•books that shape me•prayer•Uncategorized•weakness•worry
A fierce love for dark days
One of the lessons I’ve learned in this pandemic is that it’s okay to be gentle with myself. It’s okay to show myself compassion and care. I’ve learned that my anxiety can get the better of me if I don’t pay attention to the warning signals my emotions send. In response, I have needed to allow myself extra rest and fewer demands (where possible, haha). “The LORD is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.”...
“I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them.” (Hosea 11:4 ESV) sometimes I feel I’m coming loose barely clinging to You a little too much distraction immaturity or plain exhaustion poor in spirit small of faith in courage, a mewling kitten beset by fears vulnerable to snake whispers are the ties...
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing Tune my heart to sing Thy grace Streams of mercy, never ceasing Call for songs of loudest praise Teach me some melodious sonnet Sung by flaming tongues above Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it Mount of Thy redeeming love I don’t know about you, but my heart easily gets out of tune. We’ve been in a long season of God doing something, but we’re not sure what. I don’t know when or...
I was reading Psalm 109 this week and thought, “Wow, David sounds kind of dramatic here.” Most of the Psalm is David pleading for God to punish his enemies harshly, cut off their posterity, blot our their names and their memory from the earth, etc. The usual. He laments: “For I am poor and needy, and my heart is stricken within me. I am gone like a shadow of evening; I am shaken off like a locust.” Psalm 109:22-23...
“Sing to him, sing praises to him; tell of all his wondrous works! Glory in his holy name; let the hearts of those who seek the LORD rejoice! Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually! Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered, O offspring of Israel his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones!” (1Chronicles 16:9-13 ESV) Happy new year dear friends! As I start this year, there are...
We kicked off our summer this week, although my daughter is insistent (under her daddy’s tutelage) that we can’t call it summer until precisely June 21. I see it more of a fluid kind of thing, but we shall agree to disagree. I was expecting a feeling of freedom as the weight of educating my children was lifted (formally) for a season, but I wasn’t expecting a kind of heaviness of spirit to settle in these last few days. Is...
I hung up the phone with the boy I had been pursuing a relationship with for the past year. He admitted cheating on me, and I knew immediately that the dream of “us” was over. I was in grad school at the time and walked into the kitchen where my roommate was cooking. She looked at my blood-drained face and knew something was wrong. I told her the ugly story and curled up on the carpet in the living...
“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, you should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to you. But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the...
