Do your prayers tend to be unfocused and does your mind wander? I recently received an email from a friend who is involved in the Anglican church and she said she was getting some Protestant prayer beads. And she referred me to a book called "On a Bead and a Prayer" by Kristen E Vincent. I was intrigued....Rosaries had always fascinated me although I could not really see the point in reciting two prayers over and over. Well I bought that book on Kindle and read it in one day (it is only about 120 pp long). I was intrigued by the numerical symbolism in the arrangement of the beads. And each bead stands for something different. They are categories of prayer. You have to basically fill in the blanks and make the prayers your own. The feeling of the weight of the beads in your hand keeps you grounded. You need to focus on each bead and thus your prayers follow a pattern and remain relevant. It is similar to using the "ACTS" model of prayer (Adoration , Confession, Thanksgiving and Supplication.)
I got my prayer beads yesterday in the mail from Ebay.com ---and guess who made my prayer beads? The very same woman who wrote the above mentioned book! Here is a link:
http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2050601.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0.H0.Xprotestant+prayer+beads.TRS0&_nkw=protestant+prayer+beads&_sacat=0 - I don't recommend Amazon for this because it seemed like all they had were Buddhist prayer beads. Ebay's prices were reasonable...$15 for semi precious stones, wood or glass beads
So yesterday I prayed using the beads ...The best part of the beads is that it is totally personal. You can make up your own prayers and your own categories....or you can follow one of the many examples in the book. I found my thoughts and prayers went leaping out of the category into the next and it was beneficial to keep my thoughts grounded in the bead at hand. I had the most satisfactory prayer time that I've had in a long while.
I'm very excited about this discovery. Thank you Gladys for bringing it to my attention!
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