Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep

Summary

How can we trust God in the dark?

Framed around the nighttime prayer of Compline, 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: "It was this practice that gave me words for my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter doctrines of the church—the church's claims about reality—not as rational, tidy little antidotes for pain but as a light in darkness, as good news." Where do we find comfort when we 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.