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 have struggled with attending to prayer and hope this little offering brings you closer to the Creator.
Today's meditation is on physical pain.
To start,
Let's take five big breaths together.
This breathing has been studied and found to change how we engage stress and situations.
It is good for slowing down,
Preparing for prayer,
But also a good practice for all kinds of situations we find ourselves in.
So for just one minute,
Let's breathe and feel ourselves breathe.
Let's stay under this LOC.
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.
You're still here,
So let's move on.
Let's take a moment to identify one person or situation that you are grateful for today.
Take a moment and out loud or in your head,
Express gratitude towards God.
Physical pain is exhausting,
Frustrating,
And exposes our lack of control.
In historic Christian spirituality,
Physical pain is complex to understand.
Some have maintained it connects us with the suffering of Christ.
Others have successfully or unsuccessfully prayed for relief and healing from physical pain.
Still others contend it teaches us empathy.
Regardless,
Living with something that so negatively impacts our body teaches us the interconnectedness of our body,
Mind,
And spirit.
If you're able,
Put out your arms and turn your palms up in a posture of release towards the Creator.
Our bodies are an important part of prayer.
The Christian scriptures tell us of a very practical spiritual opportunity.
List your cares towards the divine.
So imagine you wrote on your palms the places of physical pain and the feelings you have about it as an act of submission.
What words would you want to write on your hands?
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
We give to you our pain and the impact it has on our life.
A lot of meditation teaches us the necessary ability to release.
We're also going to focus on what healthy things we put into those spaces of release.
If we're releasing the emotions that come with pain,
What are we taking on?
As you close your hands and bring your arms back to your body,
What accompanying things How about hope,
Patience,
Your mercy?
Pain could keep us from our purpose because it could focus us on our own needs without looking to God and outward.
However,
In prayer,
We slow down and make commitments to our core foundations.
So spend a minute expressing to God how physical pain is impacting your life and what freedoms you want to live into.
God,
We place into your hands these things on our hands.
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 the so many parts of our bodies that are healthy.
We accept the grace of your plan and your purpose for our bodies.
We accept the grace of learning empathy for others.
Taking this time today didn't change the places of pain in your body.
It may have changed your orientation towards them today.
You may need to take some greater steps to address the physical pain 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 situations,
But that often it changes us.
Amen.
You you you you you you you you
