Here is a stirring collection of prayers by Anglican women and girls worldwide around the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: eradicate extreme poverty and hunger, achieve universal primary education, promote gender equality and empower women, reduce child mortality, improve maternal health, combat HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other diseases, ensure environmental sustainability, develop global partnership for development. As Katharine Jefferts Schori notes in the foreword: "We know that women do two-thirds of the physical labor in the world, produce half the food, earn about ten percent of the cash income, and own one percent of the property. Their struggles to feed, clothe, heal, and educate their children and extended families are the stuff of many of these prayers."
The second half of the book contains prayers "To Change the World." and includes ones on peace and social justice our relationship with God, entering the stillness of God, our commitment to discipleship, the mission of the church, and the church's worship. Here is a prayer from this section:
• In "Every Stitch a Prayer," Madeleine Beard writes:
If every stitch is a prayer
I must have prayed a thousand prayers
prayers for babies
prayers for brides
prayers for new mothers
and old mothers
prayers for patience
prayers for quiet
prayers for more time
and less work
if every stitch is a prayer.
