I loved seeing these calves napping on my way home from Palm Sunday services today.  I knew I wasn’t far behind! We all need space in our lives to pause, breath, and reflect.  As we head into Holy Week, I am reminded of the importance of prayer to help us make sense of our lives.

Sometimesourlivesaresobusycrazythatwecan’tbegintobreatinthechaosweblowpastplacesweneedtoslowdownwedontstopforquestionsortoprocessasabreakbetweenonepartofourlivesandanotherwedontcelebratereflectaskquestionsorwaittohearananswerbutfiwejuststopforamoment . Ifwecanjuststarttoput healthy space in our lives with prayer and re-creation.  We can recognize the time for questions.  We can celebrate with God!!! We can celebrate with community! We can choose to not engage in certain activities: negative comments, our what ifs, a social media post, a harsh word. We can instead prayerfully let them pass on by and instead look to God with joy, with gratitude, with thanksgiving. We can go to God with questions, our worry, our stress. We can leave it with God.

This Holy Week, consider how we can let prayer punctuate your life. Let prayer help you slow down and make sense of the chaos. It can be a quick Selah, a brief break in the Psalms to let it soak in. It can be a more extended time in prayer, meditation, and even a holy nap! We can put our worries in parentheses of prayer. We can punctuate our praise and joys with Alleluias and Praise the Lords!

I know that cows spend a great deal of time chewing their cud. What if I/we treated scripture and prayer the way a cow treats grass. That would be to live life with great punctuation!

I invite you to pray boldly. Pray with the Spirit. Pray without ceasing! And remember, God hears our prayers, even without punctuation!