Living Church February 16, 2026 Issue

A Reader’s prayer

Donna Toutjian Fletcher

One Sunday when I arrived at my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, to prepare for my role in the service as Second Reader, I felt as though a cloud of doom and gloom were hanging over me, and I couldn’t seem to get out from under it.

The first words of a hymn seemed to capture my mental state perfectly: “When my heart is lost in sorrow, / and light seems far and dim, . . .” The next words of the hymn are: “There’s a tender prayer I can always pray: / Simply praising Him” (Susan Mack, Christian Science Hymnal: Hymns 430–603, No. 595, © In Our Field Productions).

But I couldn’t seem to get past the part that my light seemed far and dim to the part about praying. Thoughts that told me I was uninspired, unprepared, and—the worst accusation of all—unworthy of reading to the congregation at the Sunday service seemed to be screaming at me.

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