Prayer is usually perceived to be words. Words that you speak with your voice, words that you whisper or cry out within the confines of your heart, words that you memorize and reflect on for comfort. I think prayer can be much broader than that as well.
According to what I have learned from Catholicism, reciting the rosary involves much repetition of words. However, each repetition is set apart by the intentions you bring to each prayer. No two identical phrases are truly identical because your heart is in a different place each time.
Pastor Joseph Prince always tells the Bible story of how the Hebrew slaves sighed and God heard their sighs. Pastor Prince reminds his listeners that “Just a groan reaches the throne!”
I think artistic endeavors can be a prayer. I find gardening to be art. I planted a “prayer garden” packed full of white pentas. I found the endless blooms united in one soothing color to be peaceful to me and I hoped they would bring peace to others who saw them as well. They simultaneously helped me be in a calming mindset for prayer and were also a prayer for calm themselves.
I think actions are a prayer. I don’t like the bad memories I have and I don’t want other people to feel the way I have felt during difficult times so I pray with my volunteering that good will triumph over evil. If I can bring some shred of good to a human or to an animal or even to a beautiful space, that is a prayer of thanksgiving that I got to do something positive with my life. I have had to be largely silent about so many things in my life, but I find participating in good things to be a joyful shout of relief that I finally have a moment where I get to be the one in control and I get to use my authority to make something happy happen.
I get to have a prayer and a voice that does not have to be hidden or shouted over. I love praying for things to be better, happier, more whole, more healed, to have a future and a hope. I endure difficulties with the hope that I get to survive to happier moments that bring life to myself and to others. My endurance is both an answered prayer for God to give me strength and also a prayer for happy endings of new beginnings.
If you dread finding the words for a prayer, be encouraged. There is more than one way to share your heart in a spiritual manner. You’ve got this!
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