We’ve been using prayer stations this month to allow the leadership of the church to take holidays and have a well-earned break. Obviously, there’s always some forward planning taking place, but everyone needs a chance to step away for a while. One of the prayers stations this year challenges us to give thanks to God, to reflect and pray, and if you’re feeling particularly creative, to create something.

To be honest, I was a bit stumped at first; it’s not every night your partner prays in front of everyone about the bubbling noises your stomach is making during evening prayer in the intercession, so I was feeling a bit lost. So I sat at the table and read the poetry, and thought. I thought and thought, and thought some more, and then I asked God for help, and this is what came out of my reflection.

⁸ Now the Lord God had planted a garden in the east, in Eden; and there he put the man he had formed.

Genesis 2:8 NIV

It grew from the first line and took on a life of it’s own, so I signed it, stuck it onto backing card, and left it on the table in church; but not before I took the photo of it so I can share it with you, but again, I didn’t stop there. I like photography, so I dug out some pictures of flowers that I took around the church earlier this year, mostly backing shots for slides (now I know why I had the urge to take them) and did this to it…

Paul is undoubtedly right when he writes, in Romans, about the Holy Spirit interceding for us. It works within us, with us and through us; through our prayers and our actions. It allows us to act when we don’t know how to, allowing us to transform our inaction into action, our inability into ability.

²⁶ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. ²⁷ And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.

Romans 8:26-27 NIV

I love that when we get stuck, the Holy Spirit is there to help guide us.

God bless you all.

[After all this, the only thing going through my head right now is should that have been an apostrophe s, nature’s grace, not natures grace … oh well, it is what it is.]