High on my gratitude list is the wonderful variety of people I have “met,” either in person or online, because of Praying in Color. These are people I never would have known otherwise. We have met through my website, via email or social media, or at real flesh-and-blood Praying in Color workshops. At the workshops I present, we focus on prayer. We talk about our ongoing efforts to be in touch with and have a relationship with God.

I introduce praying in color as one of a zillion ways people can pray. Baptists, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Church of Christ , Mormons, Non-Denominationals,…all flavors of Christians plus an occasional Jew or Muslim attend my workshops. Sometimes I don’t even know where or how they worship. AND I don’t know how they vote or whether they think women should be pastors or if they tithe…. Although these may not be unimportant issues, there is something much more rudimentary and primal about prayer. It bypasses the censoring of the brain and issues from the heart and the gut. For me prayer is a hunger, a need that surpasses my opinions and beliefs. People I have met because of Praying in Color show me how they pray and offer me new ideas to bring me closer to God. I am so grateful.

Cynthia C. is a new online friend. She is responsible for Children’s Ministries at a church in California and wrote to me to see if I could do a virtual Praying in Color presentation for families with kids sometime during the early months of the sheltering-in-place quarantine. I was packing up my house to move and not available, but we have stayed in touch. This morning she sent me a short video called Sheltering in God by pastor David Jeremiah that inspired her prayer time and the visual prayer below. The video shows how many people in Scripture have, for various reasons, been sheltered in the past and how God used the time of sheltering for their spiritual formation. I love Cynthia’s prayer because she connects the sheltering of the Biblical characters with her own sheltering and fears, with all people who are sheltering, and with hope for the healing and renewal of our nation.

This Memorial Day I honor the people who have formed and sustained our country. I pray for families and friends of the almost 100,000 people who have died in the U.S. of the coronavirus. I will also pray for Tom, Cynthia’s 93-year old father who has COVID-19.