Tastes of Summer
Celebrating summer for our family includes at least one trip to a berry garden to pick our own strawberries or blueberries. We do have three thriving blueberry bushes in our own garden and several pots of strawberries, but we just enjoy the experience of a summer outing and pick your own. Eating a freshly picked sun warmed strawberry is a real taste of summer.
Another taste of summer we enjoy is ice-cream. In my humble (and no doubt biased opinion), New Zealand ice-cream is the best in the world. Our family is very delighted this year that a real fruit ice-cream truck has set up shop at our beach for the duration of the summer.
During January the summer special series is free and able to be shared. I’m highlighting two prayers from my book 5 Senses to Prayer - A Collection of Experiential Prayers - Book One. I’ll be back into a new series on the first week of February.
Berry Picking Prayer
Look at the growth on the berry plants. Notice the plants that have berries at all different stages of readiness. Think about your own faith journey and your own stage in your relationship with God. Pick a berry. Look at your berry carefully. Think about what fruit is developing in your life as you journey. Eat the berry. Taste the juice and ripeness. Say a one sentence praise or adoration prayer to God for being with you on your faith journey. Pick the next berry and put it in your container, praying as you fill your berry container, giving praise to God for the loving kindness and grace extended towards us at all stages of our faith journey.
5 Senses to Prayer - A Collection of Experiential Prayers - Book One
Sense of Taste – Adoration and Praise (AP.TA.3)
Ice-Cream Cone Prayer
An ice-cream cone is a very cleverly designed container to hold and eat ice-cream. Imagine trying to hold a scoop of ice-cream in your hands while it slid down all around your fingers. Would you be able to lick fast enough before it melted? Without God holding our lives together, we could be a bit like a hand-held scoop of ice-cream, melting and dripping everywhere. Using a variety of aspects of prayer: praise/adoration, thanksgiving, confession, supplication and petition, talk to God about your life and your need to have God providing the cone!
5 Senses to Prayer - A Collection of Experiential Prayers - Book One
Sense of Taste – Combination (CB.TA.5)
Adoration and Praise - A prayer about God
Thanksgiving - A prayer about us acknowledging God acting in our lives
Confession - A prayer about us and what separates us from God
Intercession - A prayer about others and God interacting with them
Supplication & Petition - A prayer about us and our needs and interaction with God
Responding - A prayer about us and our response to God
Combination - A prayer about involving God in our current thoughts
5 Senses to Prayer ©Caroline Bindon.
5 Senses to Prayer includes a range of products written, curated and produced by Caroline Bindon from Kereru Publishing. Unless otherwise acknowledged all material is copyright to ©Caroline Bindon.
Prayers and reflections here may be freely used and reproduced for the immediate purpose of worship. Permission must be sought to republish in any form, or to reproduce for commercial gain. For more information on this and other 5 Senses to Prayer resources, contact caroline@kererupublishing.com