Welcome to Responding With Prayer.
An opportunity to respond to the complex everyday experiences that lift us up and bring us down.
My name is Jess.
I've struggled with attending to prayer and hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on being overwhelmed.
To start,
Let's take five big breaths.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
This is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So feel yourself breathe for just one minute.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
Deep breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
That was literally 60 seconds.
If your mind went to other places just now,
Or happens throughout this time,
That's okay.
It's natural.
And you're still here so let's move on.
Take a moment and identify one person or situation you are grateful for as you do this.
Take a moment and out loud,
Or in your head,
Express that gratitude towards God.
We all get to the end of our rope.
We just hope that we don't stay in a state of overwhelmed for too long.
In these times,
It is helpful to slow down,
Separate the individual factors causing us stress.
We are capable of what is in front of us.
The first step is getting yourself in a good mental and spiritual place.
So if you're able,
Put your arms out and turn your palms up in a posture of release toward the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer.
The Christian scriptures tell us of a very practical spiritual opportunity.
Cast your cares towards the divine.
So imagine you wrote what you are overwhelmed with and the emotions you have on the palms of your hands as an act of submission.
What words would be there?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you all that has overwhelmed us and the impact it's having on our lives.
Now a lot of meditation teaches the necessary ability to release.
Let's also focus on what healthy things we need to put in to that space of release.
If we are releasing cares,
What are we needing to take on?
As you close your hands,
What accompanying things do you need as you deal with all that is overpowering your life?
How about strength?
Grace to not have it all figured out.
Learning and growth.
Courage and fortitude.
Being overwhelmed keeps us from our purpose because it focuses us on what is not happening rather than what is.
It keeps us focusing on being not enough rather than capable and ultimately can lead to paralysis and despair.
However,
In prayer,
We slow down and make commitments to our core foundations.
Spend a minute expressing to God how being overwhelmed is impacting your life and what freedoms you want to live into.
God,
We accept the freedom that comes with submission to you.
We often fight against the very abundant life that you have for us.
So we accept the grace of contentment,
Being loved,
Being good and strong enough,
Powerful enough to take on all that is in front of us.
Taking this time today did not change all that is overwhelming.
You may have changed your orientation towards those things,
Though.
You may need to take some greater steps to address what's going on in your life.
But the great spiritual writers in the Christian tradition often maintained that prayer's greatest gift is not that it suddenly changes our situations,
But that it often changes us.
Amen.
You.
You.
You.
You.
You.
You.
