SOCIAL MEDIA

Praying in Color - Getting Creative While Talking to God

Monday, October 3


Praying in Color was a concept that was introduced to me by a friend on Instagram. I am not a terribly artistic person, but I do love colorful things and creativity. As it turns out, I also love doodling my prayer list! Here is a list of reasons to Pray in Color from the website: 

Why Pray in Color?

1) You want to pray but words escape you. 2) Sitting still and staying focused in prayer are a challenge. 3) Your body wants to be part of your prayer. 4) You want to just hang out with God but don’t know how. 5) Listening to God feels like an impossible task . 6) Your mind wanders and your body complains. 7) You want a visual, concrete way to pray.
8) You Need a new way to pray.


This is not my own idea or movement, and so I won't go into it too much, but it did play a part in my journey to a more consistent prayer life. I found that it helped me in several ways:

  • I liked the visual nature of it. It was easier for me to glance at a little picture to remember what I wanted to pray about than read through a list. 
  • Because the doodles were more meaningful to me than they were obvious to everyone, I felt comfortable hanging the list above my sink. I feel like written prayer request lists often include specifics that I wouldn't want any visitor reading, but the pictures were less personal. And hanging them up helped me remember to pray when I saw them.
  • Like any kind or written prayer (I mentioned this when writing about prayer journals) it helps me to focus when I sit down and write. The huge success of adult coloring books in recent years shows how relaxing the process can be, and I chose to focus my thoughts on prayer while coloring. 
  • It got Aiden interested in what I was doing, and he started doing his own prayer sheets! We also used it for our high school small group ministry. 
We followed the examples and used some of the handouts found on the Praying in Color website, but we also put our own spin on things! One of my favorite meetings ever with our teens is when we made "aboriginal" prayer art (based on a lesson Aiden had completed about this native Australian art). We used q-tips and paint to do dot art, as we prayed. The repetitive activity was so soothing, and it allowed us to then write in the circles what we had prayed about and heard. 


Learning to get creative with my prayer life definitely helped me to kind of break out of the box I had put this part of my relationship with God in. I find that sometimes all you need is something a little unexpected to challenge and inspire you! That is what Praying in Color did for me!




1 comment :

  1. I've never thought to pray this way. I need to try it!

    ReplyDelete

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