Today we’re going to use our shadows to help us to reflect and pray.

Have you ever noticed your shadow before, how it grows and shrinks during the day? Sometimes when you’re in-between two lights you might have multiple shadows and end up looking like a three headed person!

Shadows are made when something blocks out the light. They aren’t things in themselves, they are what appears when light is missing. It is only when there is light that the shadows are seen – the light helps us to notice them and the brighter the light, the clearer the shadow.

Christians believe that Jesus is the light of the world – He shines light into all of our darkness and He encourages us to shine His light into the world around us too. When His light shines, He shows us the dark areas in our lives, the places we might be struggling in or places where we might need to make a change for the better. The great thing is we can ask Him for help in all of these things! The Bible tells us that Jesus loves to shine His light into those areas too.

So to help us remember this, we’re going to have some fun with shadows.

Shadow Prayers

Find a light source.

It could be a lamp or, if it’s a bright sunny day, or the sun (make sure you look after your eyes and don’t look directly at it!)

Take a piece of paper and a pencil (or maybe some chalk if you’re outside) and use the light to cast a shadow of yourself onto a surface. Then draw around it.

It could be your hand or your foot if you’ve only got a little bit of space like I did or if you’re outside, you could ask someone to draw around all of you!

Try and get as much detail in as possible – keep a steady hand to follow that shadow around.

Take some time to look at what you have drawn. Are there any areas in your life that you would like some light shone into? Perhaps it’s a bad habit you are finding hard to stop, perhaps something you feel sorry for that you would like to set right, perhaps a difficult situation that you would like help with.

Take some time to reflect and think of who you can talk to about these things to ask for help. And you can pray and speak to Jesus about these things – ask Him to shine His light into whatever the situation is that you are facing.

Finally, take some time to look at the area around the shadow – where the light hit!

Why not write some actions down that you have seen bringing light into the world. Use this time to thank Jesus for these things and ask Him to help you to shine His light out to others.