Finding Prayer — Our Bible App

Day 1 of 5: What Is Prayer For?

“It doesn’t have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch
a few words together and don’t try
to make them elaborate, this isn’t
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.”
-Mary Oliver, Thirst

Maybe prayer is a joy for you and the center of your spiritual life. Maybe it is the way you connect to God, to Spirit, and to a deeper sense of yourself as spirit. Or maybe it is something that you’ve tried and feel like you’ve failed. Maybe you have reached out and felt no presence respond. Maybe you used to feel God’s presence in prayer and no longer do. Whatever your relationship to prayer, there is room in this space for you.

For me, prayer has changed throughout my life. When I was a child, prayer was just me and Jesus. I prayed the prayers of the congregational church my family went to at the time, and I prayed the prayers my parents taught me or led me through. But deep-down prayer was just something inside of me—my spirit—recognizing another Spirit. Prayer was knowing I wasn’t alone, that I was loved, and that there was someone who would listen and who cared. It was the joy I felt being outside on a sunny day, or inside on a rainy one reading a big stack of new library books. It was the “ooh!” of noticing the color purple in a field, or the “ah!” of recognizing my own thoughts in a character in a book, and that “ooh” and that “ah” meant “thank you” without me having to sit with hands folded and head bowed to say thank you.

As I got older, my prayer turned into a time every evening of reading the Bible and writing in my journal. For fifteen years I read and wrote, and I felt connected to God that way. Some days more than others, of course, but there was a steadiness to it. I also started going to a youth group, then a college fellowship, then seminary, and prayer became a social thing and then a ministry. I prayed for all my friends, for the teens when I was in youth ministry, for the students when I was a minister to students, for the people of the countries I visited on short term mission trips.

But then, when I was about thirty-two, I fell into a severe depression, and along with that depression all the ways I’d had of praying suddenly didn’t work anymore. (I tell this story more fully in my book, The Long Night: Readings and Stories to Help You through Depression.) When I would pray the way I was used to praying, it felt worse than empty — it felt like eating sand.

Little by little, I found treatment for the depression and began to get better. And little by little, I found new ways to pray. Over the next few days I’ll share some of those, along with the reasons behind them, the “why” as well as the “how.”

What about you? Can you take a moment now to close your eyes, take a slow breath? How does getting ready to pray make you feel? Peaceful, anxious, excited, tense, scared? Where do you feel those things in your body? Do your shoulders tense? Do you feel worry in your belly? Do your thoughts race? Take another breath and extend gentleness and acceptance toward yourself, your feelings, and your body.

Jessica Kantrowitz

Day 1 of 5: What Is Prayer For?

Start reading this 5-day devotional in the app. Find it on the Featured shelf.