Picture Prayers!

Praise with Pen and Paint!

Mar 03, 2026

I want to introduce you to something precious to me. I call them Picture Prayers. I used to call them Pen Prayers—and still like the “ring” of that—but using only pens for this type of prayer is way too restrictive.

Picture Prayers are similar to “art prayers,” with a twist or two. Here’s the story behind them:

When my brother and I were kids growing up in a Christian church, we’d draw on the offering envelopes during every worship service. As I got older, I started to take notes on those envelopes—writing down my thoughts or quoting what the pastor said. Eventually I wrote my prayers on them and stuffed them between the pages of my bible like bookmarks.

I continued writing my prayers in notebooks as an adult—not just because I wanted to see and read them, but also because I needed to keep moving my hands to help me stay awake during church services (fibromyalgia causes insane fatigue!). When there wasn’t anything to write, I doodled. When I got bored of doodling with a black pen, I doodled with all the colors. Eventually I started looking at those doodles and my own handwriting and thinking, huh, that’s almost… Art!

I explored. I experimented. I tried color coding! Every time I drew with a red pen I’d pray about love, for example. I’d pray about nature when coloring with green and friends when coloring with blue!

The designs got delightfully more complicated when I started praying about and for specific people. The Picture Prayers became a way of reconnecting with old friends! I’d create a Prayer for them, pop it into the mail, and give them a nice surprise.