Healing from trauma begins with the courageous act of telling your story. Yet many survivors of trauma are afraid to tell anyone about their deeply painful and personal experience(s). Trauma survivors often feel shame, guilt, fear, and anger. They may also carry deep spiritual wounds, such as feeling abandoned or punished by God. They may wonder how they can ever trust God. In Beads of Healing, Kristen Vincent shares her story of childhood trauma and how she eventually found God’s peace, healing, and wholeness. She tells how, over 35 years after the trauma, she encountered God as never before in the presence of a Christian community. In this setting where she felt safe and loved, and through the help of spiritual practices like scripture reading, prayer, group sharing, and reflection, she finally found the peace she had been seeking since age 7. Vincent models how to name feelings of grief, anger, abandonment, shame, and fear. She gives readers ideas for ways to use prayer beads as a safe way to enter conversations with God, to talk honestly with their Creator, and open themselves to God’s love. This powerful story of one woman’s journey to spiritual healing offers hope for all trauma survivors, as well as those who have experienced loss, hurt, or other spiritual wounds. Each chapter includes a scripture passage that supports the chapter theme truth-telling (the author talks about the chapter theme from her perspective) reflection questions a prayer bead experience a listening focus (a line to repeat with your prayer beads) an opportunity to check in with yourself before moving forward NOTE: The author recommends that readers study this book with someone: a therapist, pastor, spiritual director, or support group. Beads of Healing features a Leader’s Guide with an outline for 16 sessions, links to instructions for making prayer beads, and a guide to using prayer beads. This book will be a valuable resource for pastors, counselors, and others who provide support for trauma survivors.

A BEAD AND A PRAYER introduces Protestants to prayer as a way to connect with God. Readers will explore the history and art of using beads in prayer, discover ways to pray with beads, and learn how beads can help them deepen their faith, understand Christian beliefs, and listen to God. Instructions for making prayer beads are included. Great for Christians with no experience in using beads for prayer, Sunday school classes, womens groups, prayer groups. Youth and children will also enjoy making prayer beads, led by someone using this book as a guide.

In stories and pictures, this book shows how people of all faith traditions use prayer beads as a spiritual tool and a means of expressing their creativity. Every major world religion has a tradition of praying with beads and all are explored here, including the history and use of beads and specific prayers. Describes in detail and with diagrams how to make sets of prayer beads for personal use.

Religions from around the world--Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, Islam, and many more, including the Pagan earth religions--use prayer beads as useful guides to remembering prayers and principles. Pagan Prayer Beads by John Michael Greer and Clare Vaughn is a unique and practical introduction to the design, creation, and use of Pagan rosaries, teaching the reader to design and make personal prayer beads for use in myriad spiritual practices. Co-written by a beading expert (Clare Vaughn) and one of the leading lights in modern Paganism (John Michael Greer), this book will garner an eager audience--from beginners to elders--looking for new inspiration in their personal spiritual practice. Beautifully written, instructive, and straightforward, Pagan Prayer Beads is user-friendly and easy to understand. Lovely black-and-white photographs accompany the text to further illustrate the art and craft of Pagan prayer beads. The how-to sections were "tested" by novices to both crafting and "the craft," who found the directions clear and easy to follow. Throughout the book, Greer and Vaughn have included fascinating history and lore as well as crystal properties, Pagan symbology, and deeply meaningful prayers and rituals to use with the rosaries. * 30 lovely black-and-white photos accompany the beading instructions.

Prayer is essential to the Christian life, bonding us to God. Yet we find it difficult in our frenetic world to keep our minds focused for long. All kinds of external noise and inner voices clamor for our attention. How can we slow down and quiet down so as to truly wait on the Lord? Nan Lewis Doerr and Virginia Stem Owens offer a solution that calls on the physical senses to break through to the spiritual -- praying with beads. The use of prayer beads, which has a long history in practical spirituality, is now becoming more widespread among Protestants. Doerr and Owens here show readers how to use what have become known as Anglican or Christian prayer beads. Readers can then use the basic prayer structure provided by the beads to pray their way through each day -- morning, noon, and night -- and through the church year. These prayers -- a thoughtfully chosen combination of quotations from Scripture and gleanings from the Book of Common Prayer -- can be enhanced and enriched by the mindful and meditative practice of using beads. Doerr and Owens encourage readers to use beads as "something to hang onto, a lifeline to the Presence that lies, often hidden or forgotten, at the center of our lives." Praying with beads, as outlined and embodied in this little book, has the potential to transform one's prayer life.

Eleanor Wiley and Maggie Oman Shannon have taken an ancient practice and made it new. A String and a Prayer recounts the history and symbolism of prayer beads, teaches basic techniques for stringing beads and a host of other objects into prayer beads, and offers a variety of prayers and rituals to use those beads on a daily basis. Beads have appeared throughout history. Prayer beads are used in the spiritual practices of cultures as diverse as the African Masai, Native Americans, Greek and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as the religious rituals of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism. But prayer is highly personal. By infusing prayer beads with personal associations, we can keep our spirituality fresh. The beads are a device to help build and rebuild meaningful ritual in our lives. With myriad ideas about what makes objects sacred and where to find sacred objects -- from the personal, perhaps beads from a grandmother's broken rosary, to the unusual, maybe seashells from far away found in a thrift store -- A String and a Prayer offers many suggestions for different ways that beads can be made and used, exploring the creative roles they can play in our relationships, ceremonies, and rituals. "You are the expert, trust yourself. Let the instructions be a guide to your own creativity," write the authors.

A String and a Prayer recounts the history and symbolism of prayer beads, teaches basic techniques for stringing beads and a host of other objects into prayer beads, and offers a variety of prayers and rituals to use those beads on a daily basis. Beads have appeared throughout history. Prayer beads are used in the spiritual practices of cultures as diverse as the African Masai, Native Americans, Greek and Russian Orthodoxy, as well as the religious rituals of Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, and Buddhism. But prayer is highly personal. By infusing prayer beads with personal associations, we can keep our spirituality fresh. The beads are a device to help build and rebuild meaningful ritual in our lives. With myriad ideas about what makes objects sacred and where to find sacred objects -- from the personal, perhaps beads from a grandmother's broken rosary, to the unusual, maybe seashells from far away found in a thrift store -- A String and a Prayer offers many suggestions for different ways that beads can be made and used, exploring the creative roles they can play in our relationships, ceremonies, and rituals. "You are the expert, trust yourself. Let the instructions be a guide to your own creativity," write the authors. Eleanor Wiley is a former speech pathologist and gerontologist who began her prayer bead practice at age fifty-eight. She teaches workshops on making prayer beads as a spiritual practice all over the world; her pieces have been worn by Ram Dass and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.