God, Please Bless My Words

Jena Muhr shares a strategy she has adopted when she needs to ask for grace to get through difficult or emotional conversations.

In my first Catholic Mom blog, I wrote about saying a million little prayers throughout the day. I have a difficult time sitting down for a long session of prayer and reflection. But I have found that if I add moments of prayer and thanksgiving to my daily life, I can have prayer in my life all day long.

Lately I have found myself having a lot of difficult or emotionally charged conversations with others. Whether it be at work or in my personal life, I have found myself struggling for the words that I need to be effective or supportive during a conversation. Often during these situations, I am thinking on my feet and don’t even have time for the briefest of prayers.

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I really, really don’t like this feeling. It can feel like I am flying a plane blindly. I know where I want it to land but I have no idea where the runway is or even the right path is. It is a hard feeling of being lost as I am holding someone’s feelings and, at times, their life in my words.

My current solution to this is to make the Sign of the Cross with my thumb or fingers somewhere on my leg as I sit talking, or on my palm as I stand in conversation. It does not detract from where I am in the conversation or gain the notice of the person that I am talking with. But it allows me to send up a flag to God that I need help. I am not enough alone for this other person at that moment; I need His support.

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When I fail to include God in those difficult conversations, that is when I misstep or misspeak. #CatholicMom

In the four months that I have been doing this I have not had one person notice, but I have greatly felt the grace of God. When I fail to include God in those difficult conversations, that is when I misstep or misspeak.

This incredibly small moment, this intentional act of grounding and spiritual tethering, has granted me so much stability, support, and strength. And I hope that it can help you as well.

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