Feminist Prayers for My Daughter
Powerful Petitions for Every Stage of Her Life
About
Spiritual language is often male-focused, overlooking the uniquely female experience. Author Shannon K. Evans believes our daughters deserve better.
Evans wrote Feminist Prayers for My Daughter as a gift to mothers and women everywhere. It offers short prayers that affirm the unique challenges and embrace the natural abilities embodied by our daughters, young and old alike. Categories of prayers include embodiment, relationships, wholeness, justice, equality, and milestones. This book encompasses all of life from birth to death while imagining God in ways that resonate with the feminine experience.
For mothers, grandmothers, mentors, and beyond, this prayer book provides a poignant and powerful path to both encounter God personally and seek the well-being of the daughters in our lives. It gives words to a mother's desires for her daughter in the modern world and breathes hope for a church that will give her equal power.
Contents
Relationships
for supportive female friendships
for daughterhood
for handling peer pressure
for her broken heart
for commitment
for consensual sex
for becoming a mother
for singleness
for rewilding motherhood
for a shame-free sexual ethic
Embodiment
for body acceptance
for seeing color
for when gender boxes are too small
for differing abilities
for aging
for celebrating breasts
for getting her hands dirty
for dynamic movement
for pregnancy
for miscarriage and infant loss
Spirituality
for an inner compass
for a lost sheep
for sacred listening
for a faith community
for embodied knowing
for seeing women lead in church
for curiosity
for the heart of a mystic
for an unquenched flame
for freedom
Womanhood
for making room for all
for a world without photoshop
for renewed language about womanhood
for the women who came before
for the women who will come after
for intersectional justice
for a feminine imaging of God
for taking up space
for vocational choice
for honoring mother earth
Wholeness
for trying and failing
for getting her butt into counseling
for wisdom
for welcoming grief
for befriending anger
for the creative life
for telling the truth
for healthy boundaries
for times of depression
for making decisions
Justice
for raising her voice
for leveraging her privilege
for making a home of welcome
for nonviolence
for the common good
for small activism
for doing the inner work
for loving her enemy
for protecting the vulnerable
for breaking bread with others
Equality
for equal pay
for promotions and leadership positions
for felt safety
for being mansplained
for a just maternity leave
for representation
for support in the face of sexual harassment
for marriage partnership
for women's ordination
for the global sisterhood
Milestones
for learning to walk
for starting kindergarten
for menarche (first menstruation)
for leaving home
for her wedding day
for childbirth
for her fortieth birthday
for menopause
for times of tragedy
for her death
Endorsements
"I pray my daughter has the freedom to live however God has made her, and Shannon Evans gifts us with the theologically rich and beautifully crafted words for that prayer. Drawing from the deep wisdom of Christian tradition, she reminds us that--even if we cannot protect our daughters from the hard choices ahead or the grief that is sure to come--we can do what mothers have always done and pray them through it."
Beth Allison Barr, James Vardaman Professor of History, Baylor University; bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood
"Shannon Evans has written a beautiful book of feminist prayers that are full of care, authenticity, and nuance--clear and gentle guidance for parents and children alike. The words and images in these pages will be a balm for many, reminding us that Sacred Mystery is always beckoning us home."
Kaitlin B. Curtice, bestselling author of Native and Living Resistance
"So much of mothering a daughter is wordless: an embodied longing for a world in which she is fully connected to herself and others, a heartache knowing she will face pain, an uncontainable awe at the delight of who she is becoming, a bow of the head to Mother God to show us both the way. Evans offers us words where there often aren't any. She shows us how and what to pray for our daughters, because when our daughters are treasured, free to live their lives fully, it is better for us all."
Hillary L. McBride, psychologist, author, speaker, and podcaster
"The words in Feminist Prayers for My Daughter are rooted in the sacred and divine. Exquisitely woven, they took me through my own journey as daughter, mother, woman, and healer. May we all read these words to remind us of our inherent worth and beauty, and may they nourish the flames of the feminine rising. This book is revolutionary for these times. I cannot recommend it enough."
Asha Frost, Indigenous healer; bestselling author of You Are the Medicine
"Feminist Prayers for My Daughter is like coming into a harbor of hope. I have longed for a creative, robust voice like that of Shannon Evans. The prayers in this book are a treasure. Evans's approach to divinity as lived in daily life will inspire and encourage women, both young and old, to pray and live as their freest, truest, and wisest selves."
Joyce Rupp, author of Prayers to Sophia and The Star in My Heart
The Author
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Jean Ubben Shannon K. Evans
Shannon K. Evans, a writer in the contemplative Catholic tradition, is the author of Rewilding Motherhood: Your Path to an Empowered Feminine Spirituality and Embracing Weakness. She is an editor for National Catholic Reporter, a writer...
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