Download includes:

• PDF print-ready file of the prayers (for you to print and distribute to members, or copy/paste for worship liturgy).
  PDF includes 7 poetic prayers with the following themes and titles:

  • Unraveled by Joy and Surprise

  • Unraveled by Uncertainty

  • Unraveled by Grief (That Inspires Action)

  • When Humans Unravel God’s Plans for Justice

  • When Dreams Unravel (I Hope You Brought Your Raft)

  • Seeking Understanding When Everything Has Fallen Apart

  • Discovering a New Path // Zoom Calls

Uses:

• Print the prayers and distribute them to members in your community

• Adapt the prayers as your Call to Worship or opening prayer for worship

• Use the prayers in a bible study group or Sunday school

• Use the poetry as a meditation during the sermon

• Use the poetry to inspire your own liturgy and sermon writing

• Print the poetry in your bulletin (perhaps as the bulletin cover)

Excerpt:

So from one indigo
Heart to another,
I pray that your grief
Becomes a battle cry
To better this world
Like a song in the night.
But when that’s not possible,
All I can say
Is that I found God on my darkest of days.
She was indigo,
She was matching dark blue
To me and my scars,
My heartbroken wounds.
So as you grieve, and as you heal,
Know that that love is just as real.

—Sarah Are, from “Unraveled by Grief”

And so I pray for an opening.
I pray that the Spirit will blow into the caverns of our hearts,
Past the unraveled fragments of days that fell apart,
Past the realization that it won’t all make sense,
Past the unraveling that we’ve all kept secret.
Until the voids in our chests
Feel like the void at creation—
Blessed with God and light.

—Sarah Are, from “Seeking Understanding When Everything Has Fallen Apart”

Credit Info:

When printing and sharing online or in worship, please always include the following credits:
Prayers by Sarah Are | A Sanctified Art LLC | sanctifiedart.org