Picture of Prayer

The full heat of the season is upon us. Yes, the summer sun has been at peak performance for several weeks now, but that is not what I am referring to. Shining right along with the sun are the smiling faces in all of the “back to school” photos. Every time I open Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter (I refuse to call it X), I’m greeted by images of excited, and often mildly annoyed, young people heading off into new adventures in growth and learning.

While some have expressed annoyance at the flood of back to school photos, I very much appreciate and enjoy them. The sharing of these photos provides us with a window into the lives of our family and friends. They allow us to see and celebrate the growth and development as year after year our children become young women and men. They serve as sources of encouragement as they reveal the imminent potential about to be unleashed by the experiences to come. These pictures, along with the captions provided by their parents and caregivers, also provide us with reminders that there is often a bit of bitterness that comes with the sweetness of time’s passage. This is particularly true when we see a “last first day” picture, or when we see pictures of young men and women standing in their new rooms and parents prepare to leave their beloved babies at college.

In essence, back to school pictures serve as unarticulated, yet implicit prayer requests.

In my own life, I feel the bittersweetness very sharply. The Myers household only sent one person back to school this year, and that was Mrs. Myers heading back to serve as a teacher’s aide. We do have one more final back to school photo to come when JJ heads off to Hobart Institute of Welding Technology next month, but that will almost certainly be the end for us. We celebrate the accomplishments of our children and look forward to seeing what they do in adulthood, but change is a double edged sword.

Perusing these pictures and the accompanying captions and considering the complexities of my own experience got me thinking, perhaps rather than seeing these photos as objects for our entertainment we might treat them as opportunities for engagement in the act of prayer. They provide us with very specific people and situations, joys and concerns, hopes and heartaches. In essence, back to school pictures serve as unarticulated, yet implicit prayer requests. In fact many of the pictures posted by family and friends could and should serve as gentle nudges to pray.

Let’s turn every picture into a prayer.

In Philippians 1:3-4 the Apostle Paul writes, “Every time I think of you, I give thanks to my God. Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy…” It’s exceedingly difficult to see a person’s picture and not think of them. When a person’s picture pops up on our social media feed, why not take a quick moment to pray for that person at that very moment? The prayer need not be elaborate. Perhaps we could simply praise God for that person’s life and the opportunities that lie before them, and that God would bless them, keep them, make His face shine upon them, and give them peace. And, while we’re at it, perhaps we pray for mom and dad back home, because they really need it. Let’s turn every picture into a prayer.