Tish Harrison Warren

How can we trust God in the dark? Framed around the nighttime prayer of Compline, Tish Harrison Warren explores human vulnerability, suffering, and God's seeming absence as she recalls her own experience navigating a time of doubt and loss. This book offers a prayerful and frank approach to the difficulties in our ordinary lives at work, at home, and in a world filled with uncertainty.

For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep

Prayer in the Night

Larissa zavala

"Beauty doesn’t take away the pain of suffering or vulnerability. It’s not like cicada song or good coffee make it hurt any less to lose a spouse or a friendship, or even just to have a hard day. But in the times when we think anguish and dimness are all there is in the world, that nothing is lovely or solid, beauty is a reminder that there is more to our stories than sin, pain, and death. There is eternal brilliance. It’s not quite enough to resolve our questions or tie anything up in a nice metaphysical bow, but sometimes it is enough to get us through the next hour. And in enduring a mystery, we need just enough light to take one more step."



"But unless we make space for grief, we cannot know the depths of the love of God, the healing God wrings from pain, the way grieving yields wisdom, comfort, even joy.
If we do not make time for grief, it will not simply disappear. Grief is stubborn. It will make itself heard or we will die trying to silence it. If we don't face it directly it comes out sideways, in ways that aren't always recognizable as grief: explosive anger, uncontrollable anxiety, compulsive shallowness, brooding, bitterness, unchecked addiction. Grief is a ghost that can't be put to rest until its purpose has been fulfilled."



This book was so good! I wanna re read it / highlight so many things and buy my own copy because this was a library copy. It was so amazing! I loved how we learn about prayer and why in the night it can seem scary things happen. I loved all the research she put into it and showed us her experiences of being a priest and why the prayer can be so helpful. How using prayers others have used can be so helpful when we don't know what to say ourselves. It was so interesting to really see that the world tugs on us to not grieve/ mourn/ be sad and that it pushes us to get on with it despite the circumstances. That we are not really "living the dream" if we let ourselves feel these things. And when we look at the Bible we see how expressive they are they shout and cry and rip their garments when they are feeling things and I don't believe that we are meant to be people who don't show emotions. We are meant to grieve. Distractions only keep us from healing because once we no longer have distractions we have to feel our pain... and only in that affliction can God really work. Once we've stopped giving in to distractions and actually allow ourselves to feel. 

So incredible to see the example she gives for this. I truly love this book. 

It's so easy to not listen to people who may believe slightly different then us or seem more traditional then we may like but there was so much to gain from this book. So much wisdom. 

Read this. Absorb it. And let yourself feel. Heal.

Prayer in the Night For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep

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