The Practice Of Written Prayer

The Practice of Written Prayer

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results.

James 5:16

It was a decade ago when my friend sent out a New Year’s prayer e-mail to our group of girlfriends. She incorporated a paragraph for each of us individually, praying over the tough things in our lives and speaking a blessing over our lives in the year to come.

Those written words touched me profoundly, and I realized the incredible impact of written prayer—it’s a gift to have the ability to reread the prayer and secretly soak in the words, to fold it up and carry it around in my pocket. It’s one thing for someone to tell you that they are praying for you, but it is something else entirely to hold in your hands the actual prayer that someone has prayed over you.

I toyed with this idea of written prayer for a few years and would occasionally send an e-mail or a handwritten note to someone I knew was walking through a difficult time. The response was always overwhelmingly positive. It wasn’t until two years ago that I adopted the practice of written prayer sent as text messages. Someone I love was struggling on a daily basis, and I began texting her quick prayers several times a week. It was quick and easy for me, and it reached her immediately and effortlessly.

We both loved texting as a way to send prayers to one another so much that we expanded our text prayer correspondence to include a group text of women who would all pray for one another. As today’s verse in James reminds us, our prayers for others are both powerful and effective. Sometimes when life looks impossibly difficult, the biggest blessing you can give another is the gift of a prayer written in the spirit of James 5:16.

—Julie

— Today’s Act of Kindness —

Encourage someone through a written prayer via text, e-mail, or social media.