Honest Offering Prayer
“We pray our experiences when we use the content of our lived existence as the content of our prayer.”
- Joseph F. Schmidt
Your Breath.
Inhale; Exhale.
Offering your presence this new day.
Your Story.
The circles of obscurity,
the lines in between.
The parts you tell through belly laughter and the bits that flush your cheeks.
Your past and ongoing conversion.
Your integration and disintegration.
The gifts you steward; the broken places.
The way good and hard are not opposites,
and there’s space in you to hold both.
Your Work.
The roles on your resume and the labors unseen.
Ambition, avoidance,
Arresting curiosity.
Your desire.
WHAT do you want?
What do YOU want?
Your Seasons.
Your Yeses and Nos.
Liminality.
The things that break your heart.
The things that keep you up at night.
The spoken word you regret,
that time you filled the air with voice instead of listening.
The love that flows through you.
All of this, all of you in this moment,
Offer it to our divine Mother Father God
Who knows it all with you,
and delights in your
Honest offering.
I wrote this Honest Offering Prayer after reading a tiny book called Praying Our Experiences by Joseph F. Schmidt. Here’s one quote I love from the book:
“Prayer is fundamentally an offering of ourselves to God. It is not a matter of offering the pious thoughts of theologians or spiritual writers. Nor is it a matter of offering God only what we believe to be worthy of the Creator--our successes, our virtues, our goodness--as if they were our achievements to be given with a dignified obeisance. We offer to God all we are now: all our longings of the Lord and all of those egotistical schemes that form part of our desires. All of this is part of us, and this is all we have to offer to God.
The part of ourselves left out of our offering weakens our gift.”
-Jospeh F. Schmidt
Would you like some company or gentle guidance as you listen for wisdom and explore new ways of engaging with your soul? Kirsten offers spacious accompaniment and trauma-informed spiritual direction. I’d love to hear what’s stirring in you and meet with you for a free exploration session.
