Creative Prompt: Draw a doorway you’d like to step through.
Creative prompts like this one are designed to help you slow down, listen inwardly, and connect with God through play, color, and curiosity.
This week’s invitation is simple: Draw a doorway you’d like to step through.
What kind of doorway is calling to you today? Is it small and secret, hidden in a tree? Wide and golden, opening into the sun? Ancient? Magical? Ordinary but holy?
Maybe it opens into a place of peace, rest, possibility, healing, or joy. Let your doorway become a prayer. A quiet hope. A brave imagining.
Let your imagination lead. Don’t worry about making it perfect, just make it yours.
Use whatever materials feel good: crayons, markers, paint, collage. Let it be messy or abstract if it needs to be. This isn’t about getting it “right.” It’s about making time to play, rest, and listen to what’s stirring in you.
(If you’d rather not start from scratch, here are some doorway coloring pages you can color instead, add your own features, or simply write a few words.)
While you work, ask yourself:
What do you hope is on the other side?
What do you feel as you stand before it: curiosity? hesitation? longing?
What if God is already on the other side, waiting… and also right here with you?
When you're done, take a few quiet minutes to sit with what you’ve made. Ask God to help you notice what’s showing up. Is there something in you that needs tending, noticing, or blessing? Or maybe this was simply a time of joy and rest. That’s holy too. Thank God for that, and carry it with you.
Kid-friendly option: draw a portal to anywhere they’d like to go. Ask:
What does your door look like?
Does it need a password?
What happens when you open it?
Encourage storytelling and imagination. Maybe their door leads to a cloud library, a garden of dreams, a starship, or Grandma’s kitchen.
If you feel comfortable, I’d love to see what you create. When I share these prompts, I’ll always try to share what I’ve made too. You can tag me on Instagram or leave a comment below. I love witnessing the quiet beauty of your creative prayers.
Play Prompt: Take a Walk
Rogationtide is an old tradition of walking the land to pray for the earth and its fruitfulness. This week, we're reviving it through contemplative play.
Take a slow nature walk, alone or with kids, as a way to bless the land beneath your feet. Pause to notice, name, and give thanks. What’s growing? What’s changing? What’s calling your attention?
My friend Elise and I put together a free guide (with prayers adapted from the Book of Common Prayer and Every Moment Holy) and a printable scavenger hunt for our church, and I wanted to share it with you today. Let it help you turn a simple walk into a sacred practice.
Practicing the Presence | Prompt 1: Sunlight Through Leaves
“Photograph sunlight filtering through leaves.”
There is something quietly holy about the way light moves through the world.
Not just the sunrise or sunset kind of light—but the soft, ordinary light that dapples through trees on your morning walk, glints off the kitchen counter, or spills across the carpet when no one is watching.
This light doesn’t demand attention.
It just arrives.
And when we notice it—when we stop for a moment, breathe, and look up, we’re reminded:
God is here, too.
What is “Practicing the Presence”?
It’s an old phrase, most often associated with Brother Lawrence, a 17th-century monk who found God not only in prayer but in washing dishes.
It means learning to be with God in the everyday: in the chopping of vegetables, the tying of shoes, the folding of laundry. In birdsong. In traffic. In sunlight through leaves.
It’s not about doing more, but about noticing more.
About looking again.
Try This
At some point today, pause and look for the light, not just where it is obvious, but where it’s slipping in quietly.
Take a photo if you like. Not to perform or impress, but to practice presence. To hold the moment. To remember.
Ask yourself:
What does this light reveal?
What is God like in this moment?
What happens in me when I pause to notice?
If you’d like to share what you find, tag your photo with #PracticingPresence or leave a comment below. I’d love to see through your eyes.
Creative Prompt: Mark-making
creative prompts designed to help you slow down, listen inwardly, and connect with God through play, color, and curiosity
This week’s prompt is simple—but surprisingly powerful.
Make marks. That’s it.
Scribble. Doodle. Dot. Swipe. Smudge.
Use a pencil, a crayon, a paintbrush, a finger dipped in dirt. Let your body lead before your mind catches up. Try to fill a whole page.
Mark-making is a sacred yes. A quiet way of saying: “I’m here.” It’s not about skill—it’s about presence. Each line, swirl, or smudge becomes a prayer without words. It reminds us: the Kingdom of God is near, even in this tiny, messy mark.
You can fill a whole page with little scratches.
You can trace circles again and again.
You can make a mess—on purpose.
Questions for reflection:
What did you think about when you were making marks?
How did you feel while you were making different kinds of marks?
Looking at the marks now, how do you feel about them?
You might light a candle, play quiet music, or go outside and make marks in sand, snow, or sidewalk chalk. You can use the attached sheet to give you a place to start. Or just sit with a piece of paper and give your body permission to move.
You don’t need to understand it. Just begin.
Kid-friendly option: Invite children to explore how different movements make different marks. Encourage storytelling through the marks: “This is a dragon’s breath!” or “These are sleepy stars.”
What happens when you move fast?
What if you press really gently?
What if your crayon is a magic wand? Or your finger is a butterfly?
If you feel comfortable, I’d love to see what you create! When I share these prompts, I will always try to share what I create as well. You can tag me on Instagram or leave a comment below.
Creative Prompt: Draw your soul as a garden.
Welcome to the first in a new series of creative prompts designed to help you slow down, listen inwardly, and connect with God through play, color, and curiosity.
This week’s prompt is: Draw your soul as a garden.
What would be growing there?
Is it wild or cultivated?
Are there weeds or secret paths?
What’s blooming—or waiting to bloom?
You can use crayons, markers, paint, or even collage. It might be messy. It might be abstract. That’s okay—this isn’t about making something perfect. It’s about making time to play and rest and listen to what’s stirring in you. (If it’s easier, I’ve attached a coloring page to do instead! Add your own flowers and garden features, or simply write a few words.)
When you are done, take a few minutes to reflect and respond to God. Ask Him for help noticing, and lift up in prayer what might need tending. This could also just be a time of rest and play! If that’s how it felt to you, thank God for the time.
Kid-friendly option: Let them draw their own gardens and tell the stories out loud.
If you feel comfortable, I’d love to see what you create! When I share these prompts, I will always try to share what I create as well. You can tag me on Instagram or leave a comment below.