I’m Cecilia Rands (formerly Prokop) and I’ve been a member with KMUC for over 2 years. Even before beginning to attend church regularly, I always remember praying, even when I didn’t know who or what I was praying to. These were often childish or simplistic prayers, asking for things in my life – please God, let this person like me; please God, help me pass this test. Sometimes the problem I was looking for help with was a bit bigger – please God, help me find a way to pay my tuition this semester; please God, help heal my dad’s lungs. Sometimes these prayers were “answered,” and sometimes they weren’t. But I almost always felt better for having said something, for having asked for my deepest desires, for having been vulnerable enough to reach out to an unknown creator and say – please, help.

Last year, one of my favourite Christian writers and thinkers, Sarah Bessey, released a collection of prayers from a diverse group of people showing some examples of what prayer might look like and I snapped it up as quickly as I could. The book is separated into three sections – Orientation, Disorientation, and Reorientation. It includes prayers of grief, longing, and anger, as well as hope, compassion, and gratitude. Some are written almost as poetry, while others read like short essays. Each is unique to the author and person penning the words, but each has offered me comfort, wisdom, and guidance when I have needed words I could not find on my own, when I have needed to cry out to a creator but not known where to even begin. I have also been challenged by this book, confronted with uncomfortable but honest accounts of who God is to the marginalized among us, and what my role is as a person of immense privilege in the Christian sphere and the world at large.

I would love for you to join me as I share some of my favourite passages and prayers from this book, and discuss what prayer looks like for us in this time and place in our lives.