Prayer Habits for a Fruitful Easter Season (+ a Free Daily Prayer Guide!)

Happy Easter! I hope you had a truly wonderful day! I loved getting to spend time with my little family. My kids are just getting to the age where hunting for eggs can become more of a hunt and less of a “stumble over.” So Lent is very focused, typically, when it comes to how we grow in faith (no shame if this wasn’t your year for that though – I’m right there with you!) but what happens after it’s over? So often I have spent Lent gutting it out, simply “surviving” my small sacrifice and waiting to collapse back into it at 12:01am on Easter Sunday. And then any progress tends to kind of just, well, stop. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe you all are awesome at growing through Easter. Please tell me your secrets if you are! So this year I decided I wanted to change that. I want my Easter season to be even more focused on Christ than Lent was for me this year. And then I’m going to work on growing in Ordinary Time, and then even more in Advent, and more at Christmas, and that seems to me to be a cycle that could result in some real change. We don’t have liturgical seasons so that we can only “focus” twice a year and just go with the flow the rest of time. We have seasons so that we can have cycles of growing, just like plants. There are times that are more restful, times that the growth is intense, but it is all a part of a life cycle. So here’s the super simple thing I am going to do this Easter season: I am going to fill out this daily prayer guide, every day, and pray these prayers while kneeling, focusing on Christ, and not doing anything else.There is a daily offering, gratitude, petitions, and a personal litany of saints. There is structure to keep me grounded with a mix of pre-written and personal prayers. It will remind me to reach out to the saints that keep trying to remind me they exist and want to help me (Time I really started talking to you, right St. Teresa of Avila?) Easy, right? I know it should be, but I struggle a lot with focus. My mind is busy, distracted, unfocused. And just doing this small thing will probably be more of a challenge than I want to admit. For those of you interested in logistics, I am going to print the daily prayer guide once, laminate it, and then use a dry erase marker so I can reuse the same sheet over and over. It would also work to put it in a frame and use it as if it were laminated, but I know I am going to want to have it in my hands as I pray. Want to join me? I would love that. And you know what? If strong, regular daily prayer hasn’t been happening for you (even with all the good intentions in the world) maybe this can turn the tide, and then that relationship you nurture in daily prayer can absolutely go on to revolutionize your life. About 5 months ago my husband and I started sitting down every day for 10 minutes of uninterrupted conversation. We have always had a pretty good marriage. But you guys – it’s INCREDIBLE now. We didn’t even really feel like there was something wrong before if we went a day without really communicating and now we can’t deal with it if we don’t get our time. And that’s our relationship with God too. It’s just like a friendship or a marriage. You put in the time, and the growth can blow you away. If this is way too elementary for you, awesome. Find your thing to do to help keep pushing the growth. God wants to keep growing with you. How do I know? You’re still breathing, so you’re not done yet.   [convertkit form=5003770]

How do you pray every day? Let me know in the comments!