(Re)discovering new gifts from God

For a long time, I have not thought I was very good at writing prayers. When on my first period of enquiry, I struggled to write them as I didn't really know what I was doing. On my second period, I was given a bit of guidance, but they didn't always meet the standards of that supervisor. Consequently, I lost much of the confidence I may have once had in writing them from scratch.

This hasn't really been a problem, we all have our gifts, and creating new, well crafted prayers from scratch just didn't seem to be among mine. Besides, there are plenty of varying prayer resources available in printed and online sources, so it has never really been a problem. It's not that I don't tweak the prayers I find or use them for inspiration, then mould them for the purpose - I do, but there's (99 times out of a 100) that framework there already.

I did get a little more confident in my ability to 'just' pray while at Caledonia Kirk, as there written prayers were frowned upon. But I still didn't feel comfortable with that (but who says ministry is supposed to be comfortable?).

And then I started at Airside Kirk. The first Sunday back from Malawi was a service which centred around that relationship. There were no prayers I could find which sat even remotely well with the theme. Then the same happened last Sunday. We were off lectionary again, and it was a baptism, so prayers had to think along the that periscope. I had no choice, I had to create completely new prayers, which fitted with the context and the occasion.

And I sweated over each and every one of them, because I don't think I was good enough at writing prayers and was frightened they wouldn't be good enough. But, it seems I can write prayers. Prayers which have disturbingly fitted into the service. On Sunday past, the Session Clerk and The Boss not only though my prayers were 'amazing', but the former thought we'd sat down together and worked on the service at the same time - they just linked so well with what each of us had to say. (I suppose, with the holy spirit guiding, we shouldn't be surprised, but we are).

So, I have, after 3 years of ministry training, along with enquiry and pulpit supply and work experience, only just discovered a gift I never knew I had. The lesson? Well, there's probably many, but I think I'll go for take the risk occasionally to try something I don't think I can do. It may be I still can't, but at least I've tried and, you never know, I may even discover a great new gift I didn't know I had.