Raise your hand if you ever struggle to keep your mind focused during prayer. I know I’m not the only one with my hand in the air. My thoughts can feel like monkeys in my brain, jumping randomly from one thing to the next. I long to say with David,
“I have stilled and quieted my soul…” Psalm 131:2
I imagine you share that longing too. There are several beautiful ways that the Lord uses to lead me into that still and quiet place. Today I’m excited to share one of those with you.
I’ve become more and more convinced that God wants to engage with us in all of our senses. God created our senses and delights to connect with us in each one. I love exploring this and then offering these experiences in our Velvet Ashes Retreats.
In this year’s Online Retreat, one of the offerings is to connect with God through our sense of touch using prayer beads. I tracked down who I believe is the Protestant world’s leader in prayer beads – Kristen Vincent. I read her books. Then I followed her instructions and made my own set of prayer beads. I delighted in finding beads that were significant to me (olive wood) or that had a lovely feel and color to them. Since then, my prayer beads sit by my chair in my room where I have my time with God. They’ve been such a sweet way to connect. It amazes me how having something to touch helps to focus the mind.
We’re so thankful that Kristen is partnering with us in this year’s Velvet Ashes Online Retreat. In the retreat, Kristen offers:
- An instructional video on how to make your own prayer beads. She understands that not everyone will have access to all the supplies, so she includes instructions on how to make a beadless option using rope, twine or whatever you have! She also includes options to make a small set, a bracelet, a strand, or whatever form works best for you.
- A powerful teaching that includes her own vulnerable story of healing from trauma.
- A prayer experience using prayer beads.
- A guide to write your own prayer bead devotion to use in prayer.
We know that for some, the idea of prayer beads makes you raise an eyebrow. Prayer beads? I thought that was just for Catholics.
That’s why we’re thrilled to introduce Kristen to the Velvet Ashes community today to have her share with us the answer to this question and more here on the blog.
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“Is it okay for Protestants to use prayer beads?”
In the fifteen years I’ve been writing and teaching about prayer beads, this is, by far, the number one question I hear.
The subtext of the question seems to be, “Are we going to get struck by lightning if we use beads in prayer?” There is fear, or at least, concern.
Granted, not everyone is tentative about using beads. Many people take up the beads without hesitation, thrilled to have another tool for prayer. But there are enough that it warrants addressing the question, particularly in my neck of the woods (the southern part of the U.S.).
I always begin my response with the Old Testament story of the Israelites, newly-freed from slavery. They were headed to The Promised Land, this wonderful place that God had set aside for them. But in between them and The Promised Land was a massive desert with no planes, trains, or automobiles in sight. In faith, they set out on their journey, not realizing how long it would take. As the years passed and they got more and more tired of being hot and sticky and thirsty, they began to rebel. They even argued with God, saying they would be better off as slaves back in Egypt. They were beginning to think God had abandoned them.
In response, God told them to take up the fringe on their garments. Bet they didn’t see that coming! How could fringe help them in this situation? But God understood the Israelites were physical beings. Even though God had promised to be faithful and always be with them, God knew the Israelites would get so focused on being hot and miserable and forget God’s promises. God knew they needed something tangible – physical – to hold onto and remind them that God was with them. So God told them to take up fringe – a common, ordinary, everyday object – and hold onto it when they needed comfort, guidance, assurance, love.
So if the question is whether it’s okay for Protestants to use beads – a common, ordinary, everyday object – in prayer, we have only to look at the book of Numbers (chapter 15) and read how God offered fringe: the first prayer tool. That’s how we know we’re safe from lightning strikes (aside from the fact that God is not in the business of lightning strikes).
We also see that in the early church Christians used pebbles and stones to help them “pray without ceasing.” That practice evolved into using knotted rope, and later, strings of beads, which is how the rosary came into being. That happened long before there were “Catholics” and “Protestants.” Had we lived back in the Middle Ages we would have all been using beads in prayer. The Protestant prayer bead format that I use was developed by a group of Episcopalians from Texas in the 1980’s as a way of reclaiming an ancient prayer practice.
At this point most people are able to relax and consider incorporating beads into their prayer time. Others, however, have more questions:
• When people use prayer beads, isn’t the focus on the beads rather than God? No. The focus is on developing and going deeper into one’s relationship with God. That’s what prayer is about. The beads are just a tool to facilitate that.
• Why are beads even necessary in prayer? After all, we Protestants have been praying just fine without them all these years. Indeed. And certainly, not everyone will want or need to use beads in prayer. But many people struggle with prayer; they don’t know what to say or how to go about it. Prayer beads can offer structure, a path, a safe place even, for prayer.
• How can they help? For starters, how many of us have begun a prayer, only to realize a minute later that we’re making the grocery list instead? Feeling the beads can help you maintain your focus in prayer. How many of us have rushed through the day and forgotten to pray? Seeing the prayer beads lying on a table, we are reminded to take time to sit with God. And how about those times when we, like the Israelites, feel lost and abandoned in the wilderness places of life? We can hold onto the beads and know that God is as close as the beads in our hands.
That fringe? It really was a gift – a gift from God that enabled the Israelites to feel more connected to God through the good, the bad, and the hot and sticky. That’s what prayer beads are.
Even for Protestants.
