Saturday Prayer – No Words

Living Word,
I don’t know what to pray today.
My mind is clouded, my mouth is dusty, and no words come.
When a word or two finally surfaces,
I reject it because those words have already been spoken.
If at last a word croaks out,
I wonder who will hear it.

Living Word,
Could this be your gift to me,
this empty well from which no words of my own can be drawn?
If, even for a moment, I have no words
then maybe there will be space and time and breath
to listen. And to remember that listening for your living word,
Living Word, when there are no words of my own
is also a prayer.

Amen.

Jennifer Garrison Brownell serves as pastor at Vancouver United Church of Christ in Vancouver, Washington.  She contributed to the Revgals book There’s a Woman in the Pulpit and is the author of the not-really-about-a-triathlon memoir Swim, Ride, Run, Breathe: How I Lost a Triathlon and Caught My Breath. She blogs at There Is a River.

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