A Wee Book of Tiny Prayers
Words that anchor and accompany us on the way
Hi, I’m Debbie, a spiritual director, writer, host and mother based in Glasgow. I offer stories, ponderings and gentle invitations to share a moment with your soul.
Hello friends,
Happy New Year! I hope that 2025 has introduced herself gently to you. I’m just finishing reading through 2024’s journal, gleaning noticings and ‘lingering in the threshold’1 between the years. Emily P Freeman suggested that January is the new ‘week between Christmas and New Year’ and after a hectic family-focussed holiday, that sounds good to me.
Re-reading my own journal may sound like the height of self-indulgent naval gazing, but it never fails to illuminate. Reflecting helps to root the growth and to process the hard. In retrospect I notice fresh connections and I’m often surprised by my past self’s words (she can be quite insightful!) I harvest from the last year to figure out what to plant and nurture in the year ahead.
In the first half of 2024 many words were scrawled into my journals as I prayed and processed my way through a Retreat in Daily Life. As I recently returned to those pages, I was transported back to the gifts and soul lessons of that time. Meeting with a spiritual director weekly and taking time to nurture my own contemplation allowed me to reach into the depths of myself. At the end of that nine month retreat, I looked back and gathered up significant phrases, breath prayers and tiny poems and collected them in a miniature yellow notebook.
This book of micro prayers has sat on my desk since as an invitation and a reminder. Although each page has only a few words written on it, they are the condensed, essence version of some of those deeper shifts and moments I experienced then. These touchstone glimmers return me to the graces of that season.
Today I’m sharing a few of these micro prayers with you. These are significant to me because of the stories they contain. I wonder if you have phrases or prayers that in a few words contain a whole backstory for you?
I am with You (inhale)
You are with me (exhale)
This breath prayer holds me in one of the comforts of my faith; God’s presence with me. I love how simple and embodied breath prayers are (I’ve written more about them here if you’re interested).
God,
Give me the courage to bring my whole self;
The trust to meet you here;
And the wisdom to welcome your Spirit.
Amen
I created my own version of the Serenity Prayer while I was studying Spiritual Accompaniment. These words often find me as I quieten myself before meeting someone for Spiritual Accompaniment. This prayer is a quiet declaration of my own goodness, and reminds me to embrace the mystery of partnering with the divine.
Amen. May it be so.
At the end of a Spiritual Accompaniment conversation sometimes a word, image or simple prayer is chosen as a souvenir of the conversation to take onwards. We can do the same for a book, a retreat, a season, a year.
Were there words or a phrase that walked with you through 2024?
Looking ahead into 2025, is there a phrase or a prayer you want to pick up and carry with you?
Do you have a favourite phrase or prayer that holds a condensed story within it? I’d love to hear in the comments. Words are seeds with the potential to grow connections with ourselves, with one another, in the world and to the Divine. They can anchor and accompany us along the way, even these tiny wee phrases.
This is the third part in my my mini-series about the daily life retreat that I completed last year. In the Between the Mystical and the Mess section of my Substack I share life stories from my own faith wanderings, and you’re welcome wherever you find yourself on that path. This retreat was nine months of daily prayer and regular spiritual accompaniment, following the map laid out by St Ignatius in his Spiritual Exercises.
My introduction to the mini-series is here…
And the second part of this series is here…
With love to you and holding hope for 2025,
Debbie
P.S. There are still a few spaces available on the Iona Retreat I’m co-leading in May. I’m excited to return to that beautiful island, and together create a space that honours and holds our full selves (with laughter and creativity). Find out more here.
Thanks Jen Goodyer for this delightful phrase
Lord, teach us to pray
For pray-ers we are not, but
We can be lifted
Breath prayers are an important part of my practice. I like your wording of tiny prayers. I used to think that creating beautifully elaborate prayers was the way to connect with God the deepest. Now I believe it is the opposite, in few words or complete silence.