The Prayer Porch

Tag: compassion

  • Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

    Finding Joy in Ordinary Moments

    A reflection on friendship, small moments, and the gift of showing up

    I did not plan on finding encyclopedias on the side of the road today.

    I did not plan on stopping to investigate them, or deciding they were absolutely worth carrying home. I did not plan on the small Coke from McDonald’s that somehow tasted like the best thing I had ever had on a warm summer afternoon.

    But that is the thing about the best moments. They rarely show up on a calendar.

    They show up on a walk.

    A faithful friend is a sturdy shelter; he who finds one finds a treasure. — Sirach 6:14

    I walked with one of my dearest friends, my neighborhood bestie, the kind of friend who will stop mid-stride to peer at a pile of discarded books on the side of the road and say yes, absolutely, we are taking those home. The kind of friend who makes an ordinary Tuesday feel like a gift you did not know you needed.

    We did not solve any great problems today. We did not have a deep theological discussion or cross anything important off our lists. We walked, we laughed, we found encyclopedias, actual encyclopedias, the kind that used to live in living rooms and hold all the world’s knowledge before the internet arrived and made them beautifully obsolete, and we carried them home like they were treasure.

    And honestly? They kind of were.

    I have been thinking about what makes a friendship truly sturdy.

    It is not the grand gestures. It is not the perfectly planned dinner or the thoughtful gift or the long phone call where everything important gets said. Those things matter but they are not what holds a friendship together over the long haul.

    What holds it together is showing up on an ordinary afternoon for an ordinary walk and being fully present for whatever happens next. It is the willingness to be surprised together. To laugh at nothing in particular. To share a small Coke and call it enough.

    That is the sturdy shelter Sirach is talking about. Not a fortress. Not something dramatic or impressive. Just someone who shows up consistently, warmly, without an agenda, and makes the ordinary day a little more alive.

    God knew what He was doing when He placed the right people in our neighborhoods, our pews, our everyday paths. These are not accidental friendships. They are provisions. Small, faithful shelters He has placed along the road of our lives for exactly the moments when we need them most.

    Even the moments we did not know we needed.

    Even the Tuesday afternoon moments with encyclopedias and a small Coke and nowhere important to be.

    Especially those.

    A Porch Prayer

    Lord thank You for the friends who show up on ordinary days and make them extraordinary. Thank You for the unplanned moments, the side of the road surprises, and the simple shared joy of a walk with someone who knows us well. Help us never to be too busy or too distracted to notice the treasure You have placed right next door. May we be for others the sturdy shelter that a faithful friend is called to be. Amen.

    Friend, who is your sturdy shelter? Who is the person in your life who shows up on ordinary Tuesdays and makes them feel like grace? Take a moment today to thank God for them and maybe even send them a message to let them know.

  • Saint Clare of Assisi: A Lesson in Simplicity and Freedom

    A reflection on Saint Clare of Assisi — Feast Day, August 11

    There is something quietly radical about a woman who had everything and chose nothing.

    Saint Clare of Assisi was born into wealth, privilege, and a future already mapped out for her. A good marriage and a comfortable life. The kind of security that most people spend their entire lives chasing. And at eighteen years old, having heard Francis of Assisi preach, she walked away from all of it.

    Not reluctantly. Not halfway. Completely.

    She cut her hair, exchanged her fine clothes for a simple habit, and founded a community of women who would become known as the Poor Ladies – what we now call the Poor Clares. And for the rest of her life, Clare fought fiercely for one thing that might seem strange to fight for.

    The right to own nothing.

    In a world that measures worth by what we accumulate, Clare understood something that most of us spend a lifetime trying to learn. That the less we cling to, the more room there is for God. That poverty is not deprivation but a liberation. That when we release our grip on things, on comfort, on security, on the carefully constructed life we have built for ourselves, something extraordinary happens.

    We become free enough to be filled with light.

    For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. — 2 Corinthians 4:6

    Her very name means light. And Clare lived it not as a poetic metaphor but as a daily, costly, joyful choice. She chose simplicity when complexity was available. She chose poverty when wealth was within reach. She chose the hidden life of prayer and community when the world would have given her so much more to hold onto.

    And in that choosing, she shone.

    There is something about Clare’s story that speaks directly into our own lives, perhaps more than we might expect.

    Because most of us are not being asked to give away our possessions and enter a convent. But we are being asked, in our own quiet ways, to loosen our grip. On the outcome we cannot control. On the relationship we cannot fix. On the version of our life we had planned that is slowly becoming something different than we imagined.

    Clare’s poverty was external. Ours is often internal. It is the poverty of releasing our need to have all the answers. The poverty of trusting God with the things we most want to hold onto. The poverty of showing up – simply, honestly, without performance and letting that be enough.

    And it is in that simplicity, that release, that the light gets in.

    Clare spent the last years of her life too ill to leave her bed. She could not attend Mass. And yet those who visited her described her as radiant and filled with a joy that had no earthly explanation. Because she had spent decades practicing the art of letting go, she had nothing left to lose and nothing left to fear.

    Only light.

    A Porch Prayer

    Lord, teach us the poverty of Clare. Teach us to hold things loosely, to release what we have been clutching too tightly, and to trust that in the empty space You will shine. Let the light You have placed in our hearts not be dimmed by the weight of what we carry. Make us simple. Make us free. Make us, in our own small way, reflections of the light that has no end. Amen.

    Today the Church celebrates Saint Clare of Assisi, virgin and founder of the Order of Poor Ladies. Her feast day is August 11. If her story moves you, I encourage you to sit with 2 Corinthians 4:6 today and ask yourself – what might God be asking you to release so His light can shine more freely through you?

  • While We Wait

    There is a particular kind of quiet that settles in when we are waiting.

    Not the peaceful quiet of a finished thing. Not the easy stillness of a Sunday morning with nowhere to be. This is a different kind of quiet. The kind that hums with uncertainty, with unanswered prayers, with doors not yet opened and words not yet spoken.

    Most of us know this quiet well.

    We wait for news that has not come. We wait for healing that is taking longer than we hoped. We wait for clarity in a season that still feels murky. We wait for the next chapter to begin while the current one seems to be holding its breath.

    And in that waiting, if we are honest, we can start to wonder.

    Is anyone listening? Is anything moving? Does any of this matter?

    Wait for the Lord. Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord. — Psalm 27:14

    Notice what the psalmist does not say. He does not say wait and worry. He does not say wait and figure it out yourself. He does not say wait until you understand why.

    He says wait and be strong. Take heart.

    As if the waiting itself is not passive at all. As if waiting on God is one of the most active, courageous things a person can do. As if showing up every morning and choosing to trust what you cannot yet see requires a kind of quiet bravery that the world rarely notices but heaven always does.

    You are not forgotten in your waiting.

    The silence is not absence. The stillness is not indifference. God is not slow. He is purposeful and what He is building in the in-between, in the not yet, in the space between the prayer and the answer. That work is real, even when you cannot see it.

    So today, friend, take heart. Hold on and keep showing up. Keep praying. Keep trusting that the one who called you to this season has not lost track of where you are.

    He is worth waiting for.

    A Porch Prayer

    Lord, teach us the grace of waiting well. When the quiet feels heavy and the answers feel far, remind us that You are near. Strengthen our hearts for the in-between. Let our waiting not be wasted but woven into something we cannot yet see. We choose to trust You today not because the path is clear, but because You are faithful. We wait for You. Amen.

    Friend, what are you waiting for today? You do not have to carry it alone. The porch is always open. 🌿

  • Finding Hope in Suffering: A Gentle Conversation

    Finding Hope in Suffering: A Gentle Conversation

    We need to talk about something hard today on the porch.

    Not with a pointed finger. Not with a raised voice. But with the kind of honesty that only comes when we trust each other enough to sit in the uncomfortable places together.

    Because some of you reading this are suffering in ways that most people around you cannot see. Physical pain that does not stop. Emotional pain that has gone on so long you have forgotten what it felt like before it was there. And somewhere in the quiet of your hardest moments the thought has crossed your mind that maybe ending it on your own terms is the most merciful choice left.

    We are not here to shame that thought. We are here to sit with you in it.

    Assisted suicide is becoming more widely accepted in our culture and more legally available in many places. And we understand why. When someone we love is suffering without relief, when the body is failing and the pain is relentless, the desire to end that suffering feels like an act of compassion. The heart behind it is not wicked. It is human.

    But we believe something different about suffering. And we want to share it gently.

    Psalm 139:16 tells us that every day of our lives was written in God’s book before one of them came to be. Not just the good days. All of them. The hard ones. The ones that feel impossibly long. The ones where we are holding on by a thread we cannot even see anymore. Those days were known by God before we lived them and He has not abandoned us in them.

    Job knew suffering that most of us will never touch. He lost everything – his children, his health, his livelihood, his dignity. He sat in ashes and scraped his wounds with broken pottery. And he said things to God that would make a lot of Sunday morning congregations uncomfortable. He was raw and angry and desperate. But he did not let go of God nor did God let go of him.

    The sanctity of life is not a rule God made to make our suffering longer. It is a reflection of something profound – that our lives belong to Him. That we are not accidents. That even in the valley of the shadow of death He is there. Psalm 23 does not say He removes the valley. It says He walks through it with us.

    We also want to speak to the one whose suffering is not physical. The one whose pain lives in the mind and the soul. Depression lies. It tells you that you are a burden, that things will never change, that the people around you would be better off. None of that is true. Not one word of it. And the fact that you are still here, still reading, still breathing means the story is not over.

    Romans 8:38-39 says that nothing -not death, not life, not things present, not things to come -can separate us from the love of God. Nothing you are feeling right now has moved you outside the reach of that love. Not your darkest thought or your longest night. Not the pain that has no name.

    We do not have easy answers for suffering. The porch has never been a place for easy answers. But we do have a God who entered human flesh specifically so He could know what it felt like to hurt. Jesus wept and Jesus bled. Jesus cried out from the cross asking why God had forsaken Him. He is not unfamiliar with your pain. He wore it.

    If you are in a dark place today please do not navigate it alone. Tell someone. Reach out. There are people whose whole purpose is to sit with you in this.

    988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: Call or text 988, available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

    You are not a burden. You are not beyond hope. And this porch will always be a place where you are welcome exactly as you are, in whatever you are carrying today.

    We see you. God sees you and we are so glad you are here.

    Lord, we bring You the ones who are suffering today in ways we cannot fully see or understand. The ones whose bodies are failing them and the ones whose minds will not give them rest. The ones who are so tired of hurting that they are considering options that break our hearts. Meet them right there and let them feel You closer than their next breath. Give them one reason to hold on today. And tomorrow give them one more. Remind them that their life is written in Your hand and You are not finished with their story. Surround them with people who will sit with them in the dark and not run from it. In the precious name of Jesus, Amen.

    If someone you love is struggling today, will you share this post with them? And if you are the one struggling, we are here. You are not alone.

  • When Power Chooses War

    When Power Chooses War

    There are moments in history when leaders make decisions that echo far beyond their own lifetime. Decisions that alter landscapes, fracture nations, and leave scars that will outlive them.

    The Christian tradition has long wrestled with this reality through what is known as the Just War Theory – a moral framework developed over centuries by theologians like Augustine and Aquinas. It was never meant to glorify war. It was meant to restrain it.

    At its heart, Just War Theory asks whether the use of force can ever be morally justified and if so, under what strict conditions.

    Traditionally, it considers questions such as:

    • Just cause – Is the war defensive or protecting the innocent?
    • Legitimate authority – Has the proper governing authority declared it?
    • Right intention – Is the goal peace and justice, not revenge or gain?
    • Last resort – Have all nonviolent options been exhausted?
    • Proportionality – Will the good achieved outweigh the harm caused?
    • Discrimination – Are civilians being protected from intentional harm?

    These are not abstract ideas. They are moral guardrails.

    When leaders choose force, Christians are called not merely to react emotionally, but to weigh decisions against these sober criteria. Just War Theory reminds us that even when war is argued as necessary, it is always tragic. It is always a concession to a fallen world.

    And that is why sorrow is appropriate.

    Scripture reminds us that God is not absent from global events.

    “I form the light and create darkness; I make peace and create calamity; I, the Lord, do all these things.” (Isaiah 45:7)

    That verse is not comfortable. It reminds us that even in upheaval, God is sovereign. Yet sovereignty does not mean indifference. The Lord who governs history also sees every life affected by it.

    “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” (Proverbs 16:33)

    Even political outcomes and national decisions do not escape His hand.

    And yet we are allowed to grieve.

    “Who has spoken and it came to pass, unless the Lord has commanded it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come?” (Lamentations 3:37–38)

    There is mystery here. We cannot untangle all the threads of providence. We cannot see what future pages will reveal.

    “I know that You can do all things, and that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted.” (Job 42:2)

    Romans 9–11 reminds us that God’s redemptive story moves through nations, rulers, and even human rebellion. His mercy is not confined to one administration or one era. He is weaving something larger than we can perceive.

    Still, the weight remains.

    Just War Theory exists because war is never light. Even when defended as necessary, it carries unintended consequences. It reshapes families, economies, borders, and souls. It reverberates through generations.

    And so today, I do not write with outrage. I write with sadness.

    Sadness for civilians who will carry the cost.
    Sadness for soldiers who bear the burden.
    Sadness for a world that continues to reach for force.

    But also faith.

    Faith that God remains sovereign.
    Faith that His purposes cannot be thwarted.
    Faith that even human decisions – wise or unwise – do not escape His redemptive reach.

    We are not asked to control the course of nations. We are asked to pray, to discern, to lament, and to trust.

    The world feels fragile.

    But Christ still reigns.

    Christians are not powerless in moments like this. We respond first with prayer – not as a reflex, but as a discipline. We pray for leaders to seek wisdom. We pray for restraint where possible. We pray for protection over civilians and soldiers alike. We fast when our hearts are heavy. We give generously to those who suffer. We refuse to let outrage shape us more than Christ does. And we remember that peacemaking is not weakness – it is a calling.

    “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)

    May we be counted among them – steady, prayerful, and anchored in a Kingdom that is not shaken by the rise and fall of nations.

  • The Importance of Compassion in Times of Crisis

    The Importance of Compassion in Times of Crisis

    There are moments in history when the weight of the world feels especially heavy. When laws, power, and human suffering collide, and many hearts are left grieving, confused, or afraid. We are living in one of those moments.

    As Christians, we do not begin with politics.
    We begin with people.

    Scripture tells us, again and again, that God sees the stranger. The sojourner. The one without protection. The one far from home. These are not abstract ideas in the Bible. They are beloved neighbors whom God names and defends.

    To follow Jesus is to hold both truth and mercy in our hands at the same time. It is to acknowledge that nations have laws, while also insisting that no law has the right to strip a person of their God-given dignity. The Gospel never gives us permission to harden our hearts in the name of order.

    Jesus Himself was once a child whose family fled violence. A refugee, carried by His parents into a foreign land for safety. He knows what it is to be vulnerable. He knows what it is to depend on the mercy of others.

    In seasons like this, many are waiting –
    waiting for justice,
    waiting for compassion,
    waiting for policies shaped by wisdom rather than fear.

    Waiting is painful. It stretches us. It exposes our limits. And yet Scripture reminds us that waiting with God is not passive. It is an act of trust. It is a refusal to give up on love.

    Lament has a place here. We are allowed to grieve what is happening. We are allowed to say, This is not right. We are allowed to cry out to God on behalf of children, families, and communities living in uncertainty.

    And still, we stay rooted in hope.

    The Christian calling is not to win arguments, but to witness to a different way – a way where mercy has the final word, where fear does not rule our decisions, and where love remains active even when the road forward feels unclear.

    From this porch, we pray.
    We listen.
    We refuse to look away.

    And we trust that God is still at work, even in the waiting.

    “The Lord watches over the foreigner and sustains the fatherless and the widow.”
    Psalm 146:9

    God of mercy and justice,
    We bring before You all who are living in uncertainty
    those far from home, those seeking safety,
    and those carrying fear, grief, or exhaustion in this season.

    Teach us to see every person as You see them:
    beloved, worthy, and made in Your image.
    Guard our hearts from indifference,
    and shape our actions with compassion, wisdom, and humility.

    As we wait – for healing, for justice, for paths forward
    help us remain rooted in love rather than fear.
    May Your presence be near to the vulnerable,
    and may we be faithful in how we love our neighbors.

    We place our trust in You,
    who watches, sustains, and never looks away.
    Amen.

  • The Power of Lament: Finding Faith in Grief

    The Power of Lament: Finding Faith in Grief

    There are seasons when words feel insufficient.
    When the weight of the world feels heavier than usual.
    When grief is not only personal, but collective.

    In moments like these, Scripture gives us a language we often forget: lament.

    Lament is not a lack of faith.
    It is faith that refuses to look away.

    Throughout the Bible, God’s people cry out in confusion, sorrow, anger, and longing. The Psalms are filled with honest prayers that do not rush toward resolution. They name pain plainly. They ask hard questions. They sit with God in the tension of not yet.

    Lament allows us to say:
    This hurts.
    This is not how it should be.
    Lord, how long?

    And still – You are my God.

    Waiting often accompanies lament. Waiting for justice. Waiting for healing. Waiting for clarity. Waiting for peace to return to our hearts or to our communities. Waiting is hard because it asks us to live in uncertainty, without quick answers or tidy endings.

    But waiting with God is different than waiting alone.

    In lament, we do not abandon hope – we anchor it. We bring our grief into God’s presence instead of carrying it in isolation. We trust that He sees what we see, and more. That He hears what feels unspeakable. That He remains near even when circumstances feel unbearably heavy.

    Lament creates space for grief without surrendering faith.
    It teaches us that God can hold our sorrow and our hope at the same time.

    If you are grieving – personally or collectively – know this:
    God does not ask you to rush past your pain.
    He invites you to bring it to Him.

    And in the waiting, He remains faithful.

    “The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
    He rescues those whose spirits are crushed.”
    Psalm 34:18 (NLT)

    Lord,
    We come to You with heavy hearts,
    carrying grief we do not always have words for.

    Teach us how to lament without fear,
    to wait without losing hope,
    and to trust You even when answers feel far away.

    Meet us in our sorrow.
    Hold us steady in the waiting.
    Remind us that You are near to the brokenhearted
    and faithful in every season.

    We place our grief before You,
    and we wait,
    not alone, but with You.
    Amen.

  • Staying Grounded: The Path to Compassionate Truth

    Staying Grounded: The Path to Compassionate Truth

    “The party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears.
    It was their final, most essential command.”
    — George Orwell, 1984

    There are times when the world grows loud not with truth, but with insistence. When explanations arrive quickly, neatly packaged, asking us to doubt what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard, what we feel stirring deep within.

    Orwell’s warning was not only about power – it was about perception. About what happens when people are taught to override their own senses, to distrust their inner knowing, to silence the quiet voice that says, something isn’t right.

    This kind of erosion rarely happens all at once. It happens slowly. Through softened language. Through distraction. Through the steady suggestion that clarity is dangerous and questions are disloyal.

    On the Prayer Porch, we choose a different posture.

    We pause instead of rushing to accept what’s handed to us.
    We honor the evidence of our eyes and ears.
    We allow discomfort to teach us rather than numb us.

    Truth doesn’t always arrive fully formed, and discernment takes patience. But abandoning our conscience is never the cost of peace. Peace begins when we remain awake, attentive, and rooted in compassion – even when doing so feels unsettling.

    May we resist the invitation to forget what we know.
    May we stay human in a world that sometimes asks us not to be.

    What helps you stay grounded in truth and compassion when clarity feels inconvenient?

  • Healing Through Shared Grief: The Buddha’s Wisdom

    Healing Through Shared Grief: The Buddha’s Wisdom

    There is an old story about a woman named Kisa Gotami who was overcome with grief after the death of her child. In her sorrow, she carried her baby through the village, searching desperately for someone who could bring him back to life. Her pain was raw, visible, and Kisa had grief that had nowhere to go.

    Eventually, she was guided to the Buddha. He did not turn her away. He did not correct her hope or dismiss her anguish. Instead, he listened. And then he gave her a simple task.

    He asked her to bring him a handful of mustard seeds from a household that had never known death.

    So she went from door to door. Each family was willing to help. Each home offered mustard seeds freely. But every house had known loss: a parent, a child, a partner, a beloved elder. By the time the day ended, Kisa Gotami had gathered no seeds – but she had gathered something else.

    She discovered that her grief, as unbearable as it was, was not hers alone.

    This story has endured for centuries because it honors sorrow without rushing it. The Buddha did not try to fix her pain. He helped her see that suffering is part of the shared human experience. That loss, though deeply personal, is also universal. And that connection, however quiet, can begin to loosen the tight grip of isolation.

    This story invites us to pause with our own griefs. Not to compare them. Not to diminish them. But to remember that every life carries loss, even when it isn’t visible. Every home has known heartache, even when it appears whole from the outside.

    Sometimes healing begins not when the pain disappears, but when we realize we are not alone in it.

    Where might your own sorrow be asking not for answers, but for companionship and understanding?

    May we meet one another with gentleness, knowing that unseen grief often walks beside us. May shared humanity soften our loneliness. And may we find peace – not by erasing sorrow – but by allowing it to be held in compassion. 🤍

  • Choosing Peace When the World Escalates

    Choosing Peace When the World Escalates

    There are moments when the world feels charged with conflict- when power is met with power, and harm is answered with more harm. In those moments, it can seem as though force is the only language being spoken.

    But experience teaches us something quieter and truer:
    Two wrongs do not make a right. They only deepen the wound.

    When retaliation becomes the response, suffering spreads outward – touching families, communities, and futures we may never see. The cost of escalation is almost always paid by those with the least voice.

    Here on the Prayer Porch, we choose to pause rather than react. We acknowledge the fear, grief, and anger that naturally rise but we do not let them drive the next step. Peace does not mean agreement, and it does not mean ignoring injustice. It means refusing to answer harm with more harm.

    Peace asks us to slow down.
    To remember shared humanity.
    To choose restraint in a world that rewards force.

    This choice is not weakness. It is moral courage. It is the steady belief that dignity matters, even in disagreement. That wisdom grows in stillness. That healing cannot be rushed or coerced.

    When the world escalates, choosing peace becomes a quiet act of resistance – one that begins within us and moves outward, step by step.

    Where might you be invited today to respond with pause, compassion, or restraint instead of reaction?

    May we be guided by wisdom rather than fear, by compassion rather than vengeance. May our words, choices, and actions contribute to healing rather than harm and may peace take root first within us. 🤍