Is it prayer?

What is prayer?  I think sometimes we are stuck in the idea that prayer is when we stop and intentionally "say prayers."  Don't get me wrong; that certainly is prayer, and it is one that we need to nurture.  But I don't think it is the only prayer we can experience.

I got a call late one night earlier this week that a friend's mother had died.  I went to bed thinking about that - it was sudden and unexpected: shocking.  I prayed, but it felt inadequate.  I couldn't go to sleep.  I'm a card maker, and as I tried to sleep, an idea for a card formed in my mind.  It was the middle of the night, but I got up, and made the card for my friends.  The time creating the card felt much more like prayer to me than the normal, "Dear God..." prayer time.

I have felt the same as I knit, or as I walk in the park or as I drive and plan a sermon, or as I write a sermon, or as I write a blog post, or even as I bake bread.  Not all the time, of course, but actions in our lives can be holy moments of prayer.  We should never limit God, and what we perceive as God's actions.