I’ve been drawing on this black pen prayer (with a bit of gray) for several weeks. It started off with a few names and has expanded to include more and more people. As the visual prayer list grows I pray for the new additions and well as the old names. If thoughts and prayer requests come to me, I write them down–although they don’t necessarily go with the nearby names. The drawing moves around the house and reminds me to pray off and on during the day.

The sentence at the bottom of the drawing is from one of my favorite hymns. The first verse says:
There’s a wideness in God’s mercy
like the wideness of the sea;
there’s a kindness in his justice,
which is more than liberty.
There is welcome for the sinner,
and more graces for the good;
there is mercy with the Savior; 
there is healing in his blood.

The author of the text is Frederick William Faber, 1862. The tune I like is called St. Helena by Calvin Hampton, a contemporary American composer. He composed it while he was dying of AIDS. Knowing about his illness made the last line of the verse even more poignant.