Rachel G. Hackenberg - Writing to God

Writing to God: Kids Edition

2012 First Printing

Copyright 2012 by Rachel Hackenberg

ISBN 978-1-61261-107-5

Scripture quotations marked NRSV are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, and are used by permission. All rights reserved.

All other Scripture quotations are the authors own paraphrases.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available by e-mailed request to

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in an electronic retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, or any otherexcept for brief quotations in printed reviews, without the prior permission of the publisher.

Published by Paraclete Press
Brewster, Massachusetts
www.paracletepress.com

Printed in the United States of America

for Noah and Faith

I am deeply grateful to all of my young friends who wrote prayers for this book. Thank you, each one of you! A special thanks to my children, Noah and Faith, who helped with edits and suggestions as I wrote. I am once again impressed by and appreciative of Jon Sweeney and the Paraclete Press team for the creative vision and editing insights that have guided this book.

! My name is Rachel.

When I was a girl, I wasnt sure how to pray. Should I use fancy church words?

Should I put my hands together and close my eyes? (Closing my eyes usually put me to sleep.) Should I pray for the whole entire world? And how could I pray for the whole entire world if I didnt know the name of every person... Laboni, Dae, Aram, Vahe, Elizabeth, Paavo, Ianthe, Jos... or the name of every place and every plant and every animal?

Most of the time, adults did the praying for me. My dad prayed at dinner. My pastor prayed during church. My teachers prayed in Sunday school. Adults wrote the books of prayer that I read in the morning before school. Adults wrote the prayers that we said aloud in church (including Jesus, who gave us the Our Father prayer).

So I never learned how to pray using my own words.

I just guessed.

Um...

I felt pretty certain that my made-up prayers werent very good and didnt really work.

... Can you hear me?

But I kept trying. I really wanted to say prayers to God using my own words, sharing my own feelings, asking my own questions.

One daymuch later, when I had grown upI was watching my baby son as he slept in his crib, and I wanted to say a special prayer that was just for him. I wanted to ask God to wrap love around him like a blanket. I decided to write down my prayer so that I could keep it and keep praying it as my son grew up.

I wrote:

May the angels guide you.
May the LORD hold you and
be with you for your whole life.

When he was a few years older, I wrote this:

God, walk beside him through the hallways at school. Sit with him in classes and in the cafeteria. Laugh with him, teach him, and bring him safely home after school.

As I looked at the words I had written, it was like all the puzzle pieces of prayer finally fit together! When I wrote down these prayers, I finally realized that I actually could pray....

... and I havent stopped writing my prayers ever since! I like to call this prayer-writing, and I use prayer-writing everywhere! I carry a pencil or pen and paper with me so that I can write prayers anytime and anywhere: at the kitchen table, in my car, just before bedtime, at my church, in the coffee shop, at a friends house, on the beach, at the computer. Anywhere!

Today, after all these years, I can say that I love praying. I think if I had discovered prayer-writing when I was a kid, I might not have felt for such a long time that it was hard to pray.

If you feel like you dont know how to pray (like I felt when I was your age), maybe I can help! You might enjoy prayer-writing as a way to talk to God.

This book has ideas to show you how to write prayers in your own words. You can read through the whole book and try all of the ideas together, or you can try one new idea every day. You can use these ideas to write prayers with your family, or you can write prayers that are just between you and God.

Your prayers dont have to be perfect to reach God. You dont have to use big or fancy words. Your prayers can be long or short. Your prayers may even tell a story using words or pictures. Your prayers can be happy or sad or grumpy. Your prayers can have misspelled words and crossed-out words. (God understands when we make mistakes.)

Just be honest with God. Use words that make sense to you. Write about what youre feeling. Tell God when things are really great... and when theyre not. Have fun using prayer-writing as a chance to talk to God.

Andno matter what your prayer looks like on paperplease know that God is enjoying this conversation with you!

from Rachel

Idea Writing prayers that use your five senses.

Lets start with the sense of sight. What are three things that you can see, right now, where you are? Write to God and tell God something about each of these three things.

For example, I see flowers and a mirror and a pen. So I tell God:

The yellow and white flowers are beautiful.

The next time I look in that mirror,

I want to remember that God loves me.

I like to write with my favorite blue pen.

I know that those sentences dont start with Dear God or end with Amen, but each sentence is a prayera short conversation with God!

Idea Writing prayers that use your five senses.

Lets use the sense of touch next for praying. Think about holding a rock in your hand. Does it feel smooth or bumpy? Is it hard, or does it crumble easily? Is it heavy? What can you do with rocks? Write Thank you for rocks and then make a list of cool ways that we use rocks.