Prayer, even short shout-outs, brings us closer to the presence of God

Published: December 17, 2022

By Lou Ann Gieringer
Former Campus Minister, Mount St. Mary Academy

For years I have carried a small prayer card in my Bible. I’ve read it many times and loved it each time I read it. I want to share it with you. It is called “In Your Presence” by Luther Cross: “Lord, may I live on tiptoe expecting blessings in child-like wonder. Seeing you everywhere in the commonplace. So I laugh for pure joy approaching each day like a picnic. So I feel good being near you. Seeking your presence like a flower opening up to the sun.”

These words make me want to be a better child of God. They make me happy and inspire me to see the beauty and the good around me. They also help me to see God’s love for me and our beautiful world. Some days it is very hard for me, and I expect there are days that are very hard for you too.

We start the day without speaking to God or looking for God in our surroundings or hearing God in the voices of humans, nature and other sounds.

We don’t notice that the day ahead is a gift filled with so many surprises and love notes from him, and sometimes we trudge past those gifts without seeing them. We worry all day. We try to control people and things in our lives. We pack the worries and stress on our backs and say, “I can do this. I don’t need help.”

We put our heads down and move forward. And some days it is almost too much. But I know a secret, and so do you. Prayer. In fact, it’s not a secret at all. I know it is diffcult to pray some days. We get busy and forget. Time gets away from us. We feel that we don’t know where to start saying a prayer.

We miss one day, and then soon it is a week or month, and prayer is not a real focus any longer. We forget that prayer is talking to God, just being with God, listening to God or even wanting God. Prayer is connecting to God and accepting that God loves us and is connecting to us too.

Jesus gave us an example of prayer that can be said every day: The Lord’s Prayer, also called Our Father. I would like to suggest that you try a “Shout Out Prayer” once in a while. A shout-out can be verbal or silent. It is a thought that you want to share with God at that very moment, such as “Thank you for this beautiful day,” “I love You, God,” or “Help me, Lord.”

A shout-out is any thought that goes through your head. Don’t wait until later to share it with God. If you wait you might never say it to him. I love a shout-out because sometimes it leads to a full blown from the heart conversation that I didn’t even realize I needed to have with my sweet Lord.

They energize me and help me recognize that God is always with me. Prayer is like putting on armor and at the same time wrapping yourself in the softest robe you can imagine. God is always listening with love because God is love. “So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them (1 John 4:16).”

Lou Ann Gieringer is a retired campus minister at Mount St. Mary Academy in Little Rock. She has a master's degree in pastoral theology from Loyola University in New Orleans. This article was originally published in Arkansas Catholic Dec. 17, 2022. Copyright Diocese of Little Rock. All rights reserved. This article may be copied or redistributed with acknowledgement and permission of the publisher.