Where Prayer Begins

Evening Prayer in the Field by Ivan Milev

Prayer is the soul remembering home

and finding its way back.

Sometimes it sounds like memorized lines

and sometimes it is only a sigh.

Prayer lives in pauses, in unfinished thoughts

that drift toward God before we have time to shape them.

A day becomes a prayer,

when we make room for God to walk with us.

Sorrow becomes a prayer,

when we trust our tears to speak for us.

Joy becomes a prayer,

when it arrives like light and we simply let it in.

An ordinary life becomes a prayer,

when it is laid before God and left there.

Sometimes prayer begins

in the simple choice to show up.

Sometimes it comes as we stand barefoot

on ground we did not know was holy.

Sometimes it is restless and refuses to let us settle for less than the truth.

Prayer is the quiet remembering that

we are not self-made,

not self-sustaining, and never alone.

Even in this moment.

Especially in this moment.

Claire Henning