Inspiration and Motivation
updated weekly

Women's Prayer

"Some women know they pray. Others think they don't because they aren't down on their knees morning and night. But they are up in the dark with sick children, visiting an elderly parent on their lunch hour,supporting the dreams of those they love with their work, helping a friend bear grief or rejoice, nourishing bodies and souls. This, too, is prayer. For whether we realize it or not, with every breath, with every heartbeat, women pray. We pray with desire, longing, hunger, thirst, sighs, remorse, regret. We pray with disappointment, discouragement, despair, disbelief. We pray with anger, rage, jealousy, envy. We pray with pleasure, contentment, happiness, exultation, joy. We pray with gratefulness, acknowledgement, appreciation, acceptance, relief. We pray when we comfort, cheer, console. We pray when we laugh. We pray when we cry. We pray when we work and play. We pray when we make love or make a meal. We pray when we create and admire creation. One way or another, we pray. Everyday life is the prayer. How we conduct it, celebrate it, consecrate it. It's just that some prayers are better than others. Conscious prayers are the best. In it's purest form, prayer is conversation. Communion. Connection. Intimacy. Prayer is the dialect of Divinity. Prayer is actually the authentic conversation because you don't have to hold back; you can say whatever needs to be said, exactly the way you want to express it, when you want to express it. You won't be judged. You won't risk losing love; instead by praying, you will increase your awareness of it. You won't have to phrase your words carefully lest there be misunderstandings, because you can't be misunderstood. Even if you don't know what you want or need, the Lord knows what you're about to say, ask, beg, scream, or praise before you utter a syllable. Then why do we need to lift up our voice in prayer? Because it's not good for women to be silent. We need to get real life off our chests. Get whatever is bedeviling us out in the open, so that we can get on with it. we can't do that when we're stuck, and women do get stuck, in a kind of self-destructive holding pattern, when they are silent. 'every person's life is lived as a series of conversations,' Deborah Tannen tells us. Women pray because we need to talk to Someone who is really listening."

Excerpt from Simple Abundance by Sarah Ban Breathnach