My first art collage, June 2012.

In the course of a visit one time, a friend said she had something she wanted to share with me. We sat down on her comfy two-person rocker chair, and she pulled out an art collage piece she’d created.

All over the piece were images and words she’d pulled from various magazines and collected into one concentrated place.

It was the words that arrested me the most. They spoke of realities near and dear to her heart. Realities we’d spoke often about in the years of our friendship. Realities she’d incorporated into her lifestyle and that had guided some of her biggest life decisions.

I was staring at a piece of her heart on that posterboard.
And it was holy.

No words but three could escape my lips in that moment. “This is prayer,” I breathed.

“It is?”

My friend was surprised. She hadn’t created the collage with prayer in mind. She’d just set out to express what she cared about.

But it was indeed a form of prayer.

When we get in touch with the most interior truths of ourselves — when we touch them, when we see them, when we say, “Yes, this is true of me” — we touch what God also sees. We touch God’s response: “Yes.”

Have you ever experienced art collage as prayer?