Adoration

My friend John took me to adoration tonight. It was nice to chill, to feel connected to life and make me feel like I was going to get there eventually. I've been feeling strange lately, getting insight into my life, but also becoming more and more aggravated with my life. I want to move on to the part of my life where I am successful and off on my own traveling and meeting new people and being on beyond high-school and all the ways that I'm not part of it. But in adoration, for a moment, I could just exist.

Today's prayer is silence.

Friendship

I've been watching clips from the show Sherlock over break. And reading stories. And watching the episodes...

Anyway, ups, incredible downs, whatever, it's a really interesting moment of being in someone else's mind, and seeing yourself in those moments. :) One of the best parts in it is being able to see the friendship there.

Friendship is the giving of your heart to someone, and saying- here this is me. This is what is important to me. You can keep it if you want. Explore it. Break it. Please, please, please don't break it. Please don't hurt me, but it's ok if you do. I'll forgive you, because you mean a lot to me, and you wouldn't break my heart without a really good reason.

Scary. Really scary. But so worth it.

Prayer:

Lord, please bless my friends, wherever they are. Let them know that I love them, and would do anything for them. Help me to bring good to the always, because I love them, and they bring good into my life and show me You. Please protect them Lord. Keep them close to You, and be there for them especially when I can not. Thanks for giving them to me. Thank You, thank You, thank You.


Amen

i don't know

You want to know something about death? It stinks.

No duh.

A girl I know from school lost her father recently. I don't know what happened.

It feels so strange getting news like that. You ache, and you worry. It doesn't matter if you know them well or not. It really doesn't. Not if you understand death.

The wake was yesterday and I forgot. It managed to creep into my dreams last night, and I've been thinking about it all day. It feels so strange- I don't even know what to do with myself.

Tip: if you know someone who lost someone close to them, know that life just fell in, and isn't getting fixed anytime soon. Know that normal seems impossibly out of reach, but is the thing you want most. Know that you need to be there for them. You don't need to say anything profound- just be present for them. And don't say you know how they feel. Chances are that you don't, and even if you do, it's not about that right now.

The prayer part of this? I'm begging you to pray for this girl. And not just this week. Please, please, please pray.

Thanks.

Breathe In. Breathe Out.

Today was better than yesterday. Still a little rough, but better. I'm so ready for a break, for a little freedom and fresh air. I can't wait to graduate and get to a point in my life where I can start over, and where the choices I made and the problems I had with school won't matter anymore, won't define me with the power they do now. Today I have a song for you, Strong Enough by Matthew West (I think).

I'm spending time with that song, and a line from a secular song "sweet serendipity".

"I don't want to hold on, I want the strength to let go". Lord, please help me to trust You. Help me to know that in YOUR time, not mine, I'll get there with Your grace.

AMEN.

The End of the Rope

Today felt like the Monday that would never end. I didn't feel good so I went home early, got fired from my job, and then I was late for auditions, and then the day managed to keep going downhill. The cool night air, the stars, and a mellow song chilled me out a little bit. It was nice to just breathe in for a second.

Here's the prayer today- short and sweet, for when life is trying to beat you over the head.

Lord, 

It's been a rough day.

 But I'm still here, and I still love You- no matter what.

Help, please.

Then end with some silence. Just sit and pour your heart out to Him. He'll know.

A Prayer of Thanks

Today is a little different. The prayer is going to be my personal letter of thanks to God. It was inspired by this story that i will post here later if I can find it, but for now, try writing you own letter, or just pray with mine. God gave us everything, this is the least we can do.

Dear God,
This is a letter to say thank-you. I know I don't say it enough. You gave me everything, and I am so quick to forget how much I owe You, how generous You are to me, and how much You love me not to demand anything in return. 
Thank you God for daylight, for the beautiful sunrises and sunsets.
Thank you for the things that reveal truth in my life.
Thank you for the little things that make us laugh.
Thank you God for the medications that keep me sane and breathing, and for the moments where I can't breathe that make me appreciate something so essential. Thanks you for the wonders that take my breath away and stop my heart. 
Thank you for the moments of insanity, for the coffee that keeps me awake in the morning, and for the friend that are willing to hit me and steal my coffee pot when I've had to much for my own good.
Thank you for good music, for intense feeling, deep thoughts, and the art forms that allow us to express those.
Thanks for family- those completely insane people that know we love.
Thanks for candles, and starlight, and water, and the mountains, and the wind, and rainstorms, and fresh air, and grass, and imagination, and heartbeats, and babies, and memory, and hope, and faith, and that wonderful thing called love...and...
Thanks you for coming to earth for me, and for being with me, and for always loving me, even when I don't love myself.
Thank you for forgiveness, and grace and the knowledge of You that carries me through the day.


I love You, and not for Your gifts- I am trying to love You for who You are. 
Please help me to love You and understand You more and more every second, of every moment, of everyday. 


Dwell in me. Make me like Yourself. Help me to be humble and grateful for my life.


Amen.

Come, Holy Spirit

"Come Holy Spirit,
Fill the hearts of Your faithful,
and enkindle in them the fire of Your love.
Send forth your spirit
And You shall renew the face of the earth."

Ok, I'm not sure that's the exact text, but the idea is there. I chose this prayer today because of a prayer we said today at PMT. Donna led us in a meditation about letting the Holy Spirit fill us. We were all so relaxed afterwards... I LOVE THAT CHILL FEELING!!! It's amazing how being with God makes everyone so peaceful, the kind of peaceful that you can't get anywhere else.

Come Holy Spirit. Dwell in us. Teach us your ways, light us on fire, fill us with your peace. Amen.

Friday

For the Gift of Prayer

Gift of the Father given in Jesus' name,

Holy Spirit of God, come into our hearts

and teach us to say, "Abba, Father."

Teach us to proclaim, "Jesus is Lord."

Teach us to love God and to cling to him

through you, Spirit of Love,

who has been poured into our hearts.

And when our own prayers fail us,

you who know the will of God,

yourself pray within us, for us.

Amen. 

And thank-you Devotions to the Holy Spirit book I found on the bookshelf for that gem

Honestly, I don't know where my parents have collected some of these things from over the years, but I really like this one. It has a bunch of prayers, a couple novenas, is small enough to fit in my purse, and has Bible references that correspond to parts of the prayers. 

I choose this prayer today because I felt very prayerful today. I was aware of all the tiny prayers I said, like "thank-you God for Fruit Loops, because they are sugary and fruity and delicious" as I was eating in class, or grace at lunch, or the Our Father in the foyer. It felt really good to be in that prayerful state all day. 

This prayer is about that praying. About asking the Holy Spirit to help us to pray better, more often, and to help us to pray when we don't know what to do or say or how to approach God. 

This prayer helps me, I hope it is of some service to you as well.

An Offering

Consecrated Hands

These hands of mine are rough and plain,

And often, Lord, they ache with pain.

Not smooth nor beaut'ous to behold,

They cook the meals and clothes do fold.

From morn 'til night, whate'er they do,

This, Lord they consecrate to You.

They labor hard, our bread to earn,

And, joined in prayer, for thee do yearn.

One thing alone, their labors ask,

In each and every humble task.

From morn 'til night, whate'er they do,

This, Lord, they consecrate to You.

Today's prayer is called Consecrated Hands. It's a prayer I found on my mom's deck of Catholic playing cards. I like it because it's about making your entire day a prayer- consecrating your every act of the day to God. 

At school today we tried to do this by meeting in the second floor hallway (a bunch of us mostly from the kyrios fam) and saying an Our Father together. It was a nice, easy, way to lift up the day in prayer and come together as a community. I was sort of surprised by how many of us showed up the first day, but in a good way. I'm hopeful that this is something that will last and will help us to sanctify our school days. :)

Welcome!

Hi! Welcome to my Blog! You can call me Whisper. :)


This is a very special blog for me. I'm trying something new- a prayer blog.


Yep. Prayer.


You see, it's lent, and I just came off a retreat, and in an effort to make my prayer life more consistent, I decided to commit to updating a prayer blog as often as I can. Ideally, this would be daily, but things never seem to go as planned in my life, so I'm going to take it one day at a time and see what happens next. 


If you have any ideas for prayer, let me know! I love finding a new prayer, and there are tons out there to choose from. bring me your favorites, and maybe I'll post them.


Today I thought I'd share this staple :)


Prayer of St. Francis
Lord, make me an instrument of Your peace. 
Where there is hatred, let me sow love; 
where there is injury, pardon; 
where there is doubt, faith; 
where there is despair, hope; 
where there is darkness, light; 
where there is sadness, joy.

O, Divine Master, 

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; 

to be understood as to understand; 

to be loved as to love; 

For it is in giving that we receive; 

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; 

it is in dying that we are born again to eternal life.

Thank-You Saint Francis.net for giving me the text so I just had to push enter a lot to space this better.

I love this prayer- it's such a perfect statement of what we strive to be. Our goal is to put others first and to let God work in us and through us. When you say this prayer, I hope you mean it. I hope you end it with "Lord, be with me in all things. Let me be someone you can use for Your perfect plans. Please help me to forget myself and to bring all the god into this world that I can, with Your help. Thank-you for giving me the opportunity that is this life, this day, this breath. Please help me to offer it back to you. Amen."