ECPA Christian Book of the Year; Christianity Today Book of the Year

An Honest, Prayerful Approach to the Difficulty of Ordinary Life

How can we trust God in the dark?

Tish Harrison Warren, author of Liturgy of the Ordinary, explores themes of human vulnerability, suffering, and God's seeming absence. When she navigated a time of doubt and loss, the prayer was grounding for her. She writes that practices of prayer "gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news."

In Prayer in the Night, you'll find:



- An exploration of the real struggles of everyday life, framed around a nighttime prayer of Compline

- Discussion questions to jumpstart group conversations, and

- Practices that offer practical, achievable ways to put Tish's wisdom into action.

Where do you find comfort when you lie awake worrying or weeping in the night? This book offers a prayerful and frank approach to the difficulties in our ordinary lives at work, at home, and in a world filled with uncertainty.



Tish Harrison Warren is a priest in the Anglican Church in North America. She writes a weekly newsletter for the New York Times and is a columnist for Christianity Today. She is also the author of Prayer in the Night andLiturgy of the Ordinary. She lives with her husband, Jonathan, and their three children in the Austin, Texas, area.



Author's Note



Part One: Praying in the Dark

Prologue

1. Finding Compline: Nightfall

2. Keep Watch, Dear Lord: Pain and Presence



Part Two: The Way of the Vulnerable

3. Those Who Weep: Lament

4. Those Who Watch: Attention

5. Those Who Work: Restoration



Part Three: A Taxonomy of Vulnerability

6. Give Your Angels Charge over Those Who Sleep: Cosmos and Commonplace

7. Tend the Sick, Lord Christ: Embodiment

8. Give Rest to the Weary: Weakness and Silence

9. Bless the Dying: Ashes

10. Soothe the Suffering: Comfort

11. Pity the Afflicted: Relentlessness and Revelation

12. Shield the Joyous: Gratitude and Indifference



Part Four: Culmination

13. And All for Your Love's Sake: Dawn



Acknowledgments

Discussion Questions and Suggested Practices

Notes