Many of you know Lisa J. Copen as the Founder of RestMinistries, an online resource for people living with chronic pain and illness of the invisible kind (www.restministries.org). Each year, Lisa sponsors an “Invisible Illness Awareness Week,” and I’ve been honored to participate in it several times, with workshops and interviews.

Lisa is also an author of several books on chronic illness and, this month, she will have a new and different book available to people who might feel that, with their health challenges, they are having trouble praying.

“Refresh Me, Lord,” is a collection of prayers written by Lisa and intended to help readers get closer to God through prayer. It touches on many of the themes I covered in my book, “Peace in the Storm: Meditations on Chronic Pain & Illness,” and also on some that I have no experience with, but Lisa does, such as motherhood, being a spouse, and enduring surgeries and mobility issues (especially poignant is her prayer about being uncomfortable with the visual image of using a walker).

Lisa’s heart comes through strongly in her prayers, and her faith shows the refinement of someone who has endured – and come through – more than one dark valley, still with faith and still with hope.

“Refresh Me, Lord,” is available through the RestMinistries website and online booksellers.

Joy and peace,

Maureen