Morning prayer

I love to pray in the morning–especially in the car when I’m on my way to work.

When I pray in the morning, I feel like I am wrapping my day in prayer (and my husband’s day, whether he knows it or not). I also feel a deep peace that I am starting the day off pointing to God as the center and rock of my life.

I find that by the time I leave work at the end of the day, I often have the “psychological effects” of the morning prayer wearing off. I’m generally tired, grumpy and hungry when I get in the car to go home. So I usually make myself pray during my short little car ride home to bless the evening, too.

I know that having kids will generally make me (and my husband) even more tired and grumpy by the end of the day, so I am trying to start exercising my spiritual muscles now! When I am tired, I get very quiet and much less responsive in conversations, and my Good Listener skills go (make that fly) out the nearest window. Taking that home with me isn’t fair to Michael, and it won’t be fair to my family.

I still wish that I had made a much bigger effort to be a good listener and a cheerful personality at home in college. During my last two years of college, I was often so tired and stressed out by the time I made it home at night that I barely spoke to any of my roommates on many days! (Lacey, Kim and Emily: If you are reading this, I am so sorry! 🙂

Usually I like to pray “free form,” but sometimes going back to the beautiful, well-written prayers we Catholics have such an abundance of is really wonderful. Those prayers remind me to be more specific, to move out of myself, and to realize that praying for my day is actually blessing and enriching the day for others.

Here is my very favorite “non free form” prayer for the morning, courtesy of The Catholic Devotional, one of those free little pamphlets you can find in the back of many Catholic churches:
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