Making Prayers Your Own

Making Prayers Your Own

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Making Prayers Your Own

Here are a few ideas to help you help you to make prayers your own.

Attend services at places of worship with an open heart. Attend services of different denominations and different religions. This is a good way to get familiar with different kinds of prayers. If you don’t like the prayers you hear, reword them to yourself during the service.
Ask friends if they pray and how they pray. Ask if they have any prayers they love and if they have any prayer books you can borrow.
Browse the spirituality sections of the bookstores or libraries – every year there seem to be more prayer books and books about prayers.
Read the psalms in the Bible – they contain many familiar phrases and many surprises. They are great prayers to read aloud, to question, to get angry at and to engage with.
Seek out and read holy books and prayer books of all traditions.
Set aside time to read prayers, all kinds of prayers. Don’t limit yourself to the prayer traditions you know.
Have a dialogue with the prayers – critique them. Think of what you like, what you don’t like about the prayers.
Find a prayer that calls to you and rewrite it in your own words.
Find a prayer that you can’t stand and rewrite it so it makes sense to you.
Start a letter “Dear God” or “Dear Universe” and write from your heart.
Light a candle and sit peacefully. Write down your hopes and dreams, your thoughts, and distresses.
Make a prayer list – people you would like to send healing or loving thoughts to. Say your list and your wishes for them out loud.
Find songs that are prayers or songs that feel like prayers to you and listen to them.
When the mood comes to you (as you walk along your way, or sit in your house, or are out in nature or where ever you might be), talk to God. Have conversations about your hopes, your dreams, your disappointments, what you are thankful for.
DO NOT CENSOR your conversations with God or any prayers you write or say.
Write prayers in a journal, or if you are writing them on the computer, print them out and put them in a notebook.
Pick one prayer (your own or from a prayer book) and say it daily.
Rewrite your prayers as often as you are inclined. But every once in a while, stop rewriting and just enjoy the prayers as they are. At times when Betsy says her own written prayers (or other prayers), she wants to rewrite them and sometimes she does.