This is for all of you people out there who love God but sometimes get bored. Who have had good prayer lives but sometimes feel like you’ve lost that spark. Will you please pray with me? Lord, I love you, I do. That has never changed. I long to grow closer to you. I’m excited...

Lord, I confess that this election season is the first time I’ve let other people’s stances on political issues change the way I feel about them. I used to pride myself on being open to other opinions, on looking for similarities rather than differences. On my ability to separate someone’s opinion from who they are. I...

I took a humanities course during my freshman year of college. As much as I now love to read and write, discussing classic literature right after lunchtime made me especially sleepy—warm classroom, full tummy, and the lack of sleep caused by the near all-nighters I pulled regularly as an architecture major. But one day the lesson woke me up because my professor was...

Today’s prayer is written by Dr. Michelle Bengtson. She is a sweet, bubbly, lovely, genuine woman I met at Suzie Eller’s Come With Me retreat in April. There’s something about her that just draws people in. I follow her on social media and love her upbeat posts. Her forthcoming book is called Hope Prevails: Insights...

My 15-year-old son goes back to school tomorrow, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how weird it is to see him growing up. So I thought I’d share this prayer with you today. Lord, when people told me there is something special about the relationship between a mom and her son, they were right. But...

Pray about it! I declare. Pray without ceasing, the Bible tells us. Prayer changes us, I promise. I write about prayer, but do I truly believe it? Absolutely. Except sometimes life gets in the way of our best intentions. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer and then passed away in spite of all the...

Picture this scene. It’s a Sunday night church service, and a small group of “regulars” stand in front of the altar while music plays. One after another, we lay hands on people and pray. A woman comes up, her head wrapped in a scarf to hide her bald head. She has cancer, and she wants prayer. I pray, calling out...

If we filled in the squares on a calendar with our daily prayers, it would look something like this: Help me, Lord. Fix my finances. Mend my relationships. Bless my kids. Heal my friend. Forgive me. (Repeat.) And all of those are legitimate requests. Real, true, vulnerable, and necessary. But I get tired of praying the same...

Lord, I am tired of all the ugliness I see in the world. I’m frustrated by the way some people use your Word as a weapon. I’m ashamed by the way we treat each other. I’m horrified by the hatred and violence. I’m disappointed by the lack of authenticity and by the differences that once...

Dear Lord, As You—and anyone who has ever talked to me for more than five minutes—know, summers are a struggle for me. I’m certain I sound like a terrible mom when I say that. And maybe I am a terrible mom. I don’t know. I’m just being real. I’m used to having some space to...