May 3rd Prayer

Today’s thoughts are provided by Rev. Judith Holliman.

Dear Friends,

Every now and then a book comes my way that becomes in its turn part of me, I don’t just read it, I walk into it. Or as Julia Donaldson says: ‘I opened a book and in I strode Now nobody can find me. I’ve left my chair, my house, my road, My town and my world behind me.’

That happened for me this week when I read ‘Liturgy of the Ordinary’ by Tish Harrison Warren. Much of what I now write comes from the ideas begun by this book.

I often comment when I am preaching on the baptism of Jesus that he hadn’t actually ‘done’ anything when he was baptised, nothing that is except to be himself, he had been him, and in being him he was God’s son with whom God was well pleased. He was beloved. When we wake first thing in the morning, rumpled and drooley (maybe that’s just me!), slightly not quite awake yet, we are beloved, we haven’t done anything, but we are loved. Our waking identity is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more real than any other identity we will don that day belongs in that moment to us.

To awake is a gift – do you start the day thanking God for it even if it is that brief, thank you. Thank you, God that before I get up Before I clean my teeth or go for a wee before I even think straight I am beloved.

Today is a special one for us in the Holliman household as James is 19. James gives me many reasons to pray on a daily, often hourly basis and that is okay. I developed the need to put down and process lots of things as James found his own way through life and school especially, I found that doodle prayers worked really well.

They are very much a personal way of talking to God without talking, enabling me to put things deliberately before God and as I doodle, trying to accept, to understand, to find my way, my place – to acknowledge that God knows and understands.

Perhaps it is something that could work for you if you give it a chance, not much to lose is there? So here are some doodle prayers for today – give it a try.
If it works for you there is lots of other info at prayingincolours.com