So....what does this kind of prayer look like? Praise prayer, cry prayer, laugh prayer, scream prayer, dance prayer, silent prayer, humble prayer, desperate prayer...It takes many shapes, many moods, many emotions, many sounds. I've learned many different kinds of prayer. Ruth Graham said: SEE HER HEART UPON ITS KNEES. That's what prayer looks like.
~ Mary Knox, Evergreen Community Church
When we come, as we all do sometimes, to "the end of our hoarded resources" (hymnist Annie Johnston Flint), may we find through prayer that "our Father's full giving has only begun."
~ Sandy Hopler, wife of John Hopler, Great Commission Association of Churches
Life feels like one of those scenes from a movie, when someone is sitting still, ponderous and alone, while people pass by in a blur. I went to a baby shower today, and I felt exactly like that. I wish I could stop everyone I meet and tell them to treasure this moment - treasure the way it feels when your baby kicks you from the inside. Treasure the tired infant struggling at your breast in a last pre-sleep flurry of activity. Treasure watching your daughter, your sister, your friend as she opens gifts at her very first baby shower. Treasure the scent of your coffee, and the conversation of your friend, and the laughter of the stranger next to you. Being carefree, footloose and fancy-free...it comes and goes in this journey. Treasure it.
Arise, cry out in the night,
at the beginning of the night watches!
Pour out your heart like water
before the presence of the Lord.
Lift up your hands to him
for the lives of your little children...
~ Lamentation 2:19 (ESV)
Listen, Lord,
a mother’s praying
low and quiet:
listen, please.
Listen what her tears
are saying,
see her heart
upon its knees;
lift the load
from her bowed shoulders
till she sees
and understands,
You, Who hold
the worlds together,
hold her problems
in Your hands.
~ Ruth Graham Bell, Listen, Lord; from Collected Poems
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