I love words and I love a blank page ready to be filled with words. I started journaling my prayers around twelve years old when I was given a prayer journal filled with prompts which helped the reader combine prayer with journaling. Over the years, I have gone through different seasons varying in intensity form nursing school, working as a young adult, to a young mom. I have two children, 3 years old and 18 months and I have yet to really feel I have arrived at spending time with Jesus when my kids are around. I find the best time is to be awake before them and stay awake while I read and pray. However, realistically I do not wake up before them often. I say this because I want you to know that whatever season you are currently living in, you may have to adapt the time you spend with the Lord. However, the Lord KNOWS your season, whoever you are caring for or whatever difficulty is going on in your life, God is a gracious and loving God, and He wants to hear from you whatever that looks like in your life.
I am a recovering perfectionist with creative tendencies so seeing the words on the page helps me to feel grounded in good ways. I also love to be able to look through my prayers and see them answered. I’ll show you a picture of my current structure…
On the left-hand side, you will see prayer requests and people I pray for, this is not an exhaustive list but a sampling. I personally choose to pray for people as they come to mind so that means some people may get left off one day and added on the next day. I like to see it as God working in my memory to tell me who to pray for. Also, as a part of my prayer practice, I like to think of praises and/or things I am thankful for which I list at the top of each page. It is so exciting to move something from the left to the top of the page. The center section is my thoughts and reflections on scripture, sometimes I write out a long form prayer here. My early journals are all long letters to God, but in this season of my life I don’t have hours for my quiet time, sometimes I have minutes.
Lastly, a discipline I am working to strengthen in my life is the art of listening to God. I am trying to build up to ten minutes of quiet listening to God. I listen and if I don’t hear or see anything in my imagination, I move onwards. But sometimes, I’ll be given a word of encouragement in my mind’s eye or a picture, and I try to describe or even draw those here at the bottom of the page. If you are unfamiliar with the practice of listening prayer start short with two minutes of quiet at a time. Distracting thoughts will come but simply redirect yourself back to your goal.
Prayer Journaling is an amazing tool that I have used over the years to focus and guide my time with the Lord, however, this may not work for everyone and that is okay! I offer my practices as suggestions. As you reflect on these ideas determine if any of them will work with your current season. The most important part of prayer is that we participate!
Rachel is the wife to Fr Michael Schwandt who is currently serving at St. Timothy’s Anglican Church. She is the mom to two little people. She enjoys reading books and drinking tea during nap time.
