Head-to-Toe Prayer
As we enter the season of Lent, we draw our attention inward and renew our connection with God. This week, we’d like to offer you a tool to help you focus your efforts: Head-to-Toe Prayer.
This type of prayer is accessible to kids of all ages, and you can start off doing it all together. We also recommend pairing it with a mindfulness technique called a body scan, and that’s where you’ll start: find a quiet space to sit, stand, or lay down. Have everybody close their eyes and start to deepen their breath. During a body scan, you move your attention to different parts of your body and notice how they feel at that moment. As you lead the body scan, you’ll pause and pray over each body part your attention touches. Here are some examples:
As you consider your eyes, pray that God would give you the ability to see the good in others, and to notice those in need of God’s love
As you notice your hands, pray that God would help you use your hands to serve, so that you might become the best of who you were created to be
As you pay attention to your belly, thank God for blessing you with the food you need to live – maybe even specifically for some of your favorite foods, the ones that bring you joy!
There are loose scripts for a handful of body parts (no pun intended) on the Ministry Spark blog, but we encourage you to make these prayers your own. You might also list some of the body parts that are NOT included, and come up with prayers for those. How can you find God in your elbows? Your shoulders? Your nose?
Head-to-Toe Prayer is beautifully repeatable, over the course of the week or perhaps all of Lent, and while you might continue praying this way as a family, even younger kids can become independent at it before too long. We hope it will help fill you with a sense of God’s presence, and give your family yet another way to prepare for Easter. And we invite you to share your family’s additions to the “script” with us on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram!
