I usually post stuff on this site for your kids, but today, this post is for YOU. God is calling you to have a personal relationship and prayer life with him. I started realizing that if I’m not cultivating my personal relationship with Jesus, what am I doing the rest of this stuff for? This is what it’s all about!
As I started feeling a strong calling to strengthen my prayer life, a friend of mine was being convicted of the same thing. So, together, we brainstormed and came up with these prayer box dividers. These are hands-down the best way I have ever found to organize prayer intentions and personal prayer.
Check out my video here about how these work and what’s in my prayer box, and don’t forget to subscribe to my channel on YouTube so you don’t miss out on future videos! 🙂
This has been such an amazing tool for me, and it has taken my prayer life to a new level! My New Year’s resolution this year is to use the box every. single. day of 2015 with no excuses—I’m very excited! Also, I’m really happy to be sharing something with you guys that I’ve already been using (on and off) for about six months now. It’s so great to have sufficient time to try something out before recommending it to a friend.
Last year, I heard someone mention the term “popcorn prayers,” which refers to praying for something whenever it happens to pop into your head. There’s nothing wrong with popcorn prayers- it’s always great to pray! However, I don’t want to only remember to pray for my children, my homeschool, the military, our government, church leaders, or my marriage only when it happens to “pop” into my head. I wanted a more organized way for these important intentions not to fall between the cracks. This prayer box has been amazing for this!
How This Prayer Box Works:
So here’s the system: You build a prayer box from an index card box with the printable dividers, which you can download at the bottom of this post.
Whatever you want to pray for every single day goes behind the “Daily” tab. *Note* There are actually 2 different choices for this in the download. I expanded my box to have one divider for morning prayers and one for evening prayers rather than having only 1 daily tab, but both options are available.
The next dividers say “Even” and “Odd” for the even and odd calendar days. You take anything that you want to pray for every other day and divide them evenly among the tabs.
Next, there is a set of days of the week dividers that run Sunday through Saturday. Behind these tabs, you can divide anything you want to pray for weekly.
Lastly, there is a set of numbered dividers running 1-31. These are for anything you want to remember to pray for monthly.
So if the date were Monday, January 5, you would pray:
- the intentions behind your “Daily” tab (or “Morning” and “Evening” tabs)
- the prayers behind the “Odd” tab
- whatever you pray for on Mondays
- and whatever you pray for on the 5th of each month
Pros Of Using A Prayer Box:
- When you have an intention you want to pray for, you can choose whether you want to pray for it daily, every other day, weekly, or monthly. Then, you file it accordingly. Done! You’ll never forget again!
- Unlike a prayer journal, it’s easy to re-arrange things. For instance, you were praying weekly for Aunt Margie, who has cancer, but her condition has really worsened, and she doesn’t have much time left, so you move her behind the “daily” or every other day tab.
- When you tell someone you will pray for them, you’ll have a system to make it actually happen!
- It’s very easy to add intentions from your box—just jotting them down on a note card and putting them in. They’re also easy to take back out or re-file at any time.
- You can file anything small behind the dividers—holy cards, pieces of scratch paper, ripped-out pages from your Magnificat folded in half, and, my favorite thing, photographs!
Ideas For What To Put In Your Box:
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My official advice here is that when you’re first building your box, don’t overthink it. I don’t suggest stuffing it full of every single thing you ever wish you prayed for. Just take an honest look at what you feel called to pray for and how often you want to pray for those things. Remember: there is nothing permanent about where you place things! If it turns out you’ve put too many things to handle behind the daily tab, simply move it to weekly, and so on.
Here is a list of prayers and prayer intentions to help get the cogs in your brain turning about what can go in your box:
- Morning Offering
- Examination of Conscience and Act of Contrition
- Photographs of friends and family
- Your Favorite Saint Prayers (The St. Michael prayer and the Prayer of St. Francis are some of my favorites. What prayers have the Saints inspired you with that you wish you got around to praying more often?)
- Holy Cards
- Inspirational scripture
- Fruits and/or Gifts of the Spirit
- Don’t forget the classics: the Angelus, Hail Mary, Our Father, Glory Be, Apostle’s Creed, the Rosary, Guardian Angel, Fatima Prayer, Hail Holy Queen, Prayer before a crucifix, Spiritual Communion, etc.
- “Act Of” prayers: Contrition, Hope, Love, and Faith
- Prayer to a patron Saint
- Prayer for humility, patience, purity, or any other virtue you wish to strengthen
- Family: spouse, children, extended family, etc.
- Friends: any non-believers, anyone physically or mentally ill, anyone going through a hard time
- Prayer to Jesus
- Prayer for your enemies
- Widows and orphans
- Shut-ins
- Prayer for those who are persecuted for their faith
- Your child’s future spouse
- Political Leaders
- Spiritual Leaders
- Non-believers
- Vocations
- Military
- World Peace
- Hungry, Thirsty, (works of mercy)
- Liturgical Seasons
- Monthly Cards for dedications
- Unborn babies
- Emergency responders
- The Church
I personally wanted to make sure my prayer life included all kinds of prayer since, all too often, it’s easy to fall into the trap of only praying when we want something.
Types Of Prayer:
- Praise and Adoration
- Prayer of Petition (asking for what we need and asking for forgiveness falls into this category)
- Prayer of Intercession (asking for what others need)
- Prayer of Thanksgiving
“Scheduling” cards:
I also had an idea that you could make cards that said things like “go to Confession” and keep them behind your “Other” tab. If you want to go this week on Saturday, slide it in on Saturday. Now you won’t forget! Here are some cards I think could work well to “schedule” things like that.
- Read Mass Readings
- Pray The Rosary
- Go To Confession
- Go To Adoration
- Read Scripture
- Tithe
- Friday Sacrifice
In My Box:
For anyone who is looking for some inspiration, here are some things I include in my prayer box. It takes me about 15 minutes to go through my box each morning. Note: Some things in my prayer box are personal, and therefore, they were not shared here.
- Morning: Morning offering, a prayer for God to reveal to me what needs to be prayed for that day, a prayer of adoration, prayer for our homeschool, my patience, and my productivity for the day, personal prayer
- Evening: Prayer before Examination of Conscience, Examination of Conscience, Act of Contrition, Litany of Thanksgiving
- Even Calendar Days (every other day): Prayer for our Family, Litany of Humility, Fruits of the Spirit
- Odd Calendar Days (every other day): Prayer for Friends, Prayer of St. Francis
- Sunday: Prayer before Mass and Eucharist
- Monday: Mark (my husband)
- Tuesday: Then I do 1 day for each of my children; Tuesday is Lydia
- Wednesday: Julian
- Thursday: Violet
- Friday: Anabelle
- Saturday: My Godchildren (I have 2)
You can see that each member of my family has a day of the week. I keep a photograph of them behind their daily tag. I take out the photo and meditate on it for a few minutes. I ask God to reveal to me what this person needs and how I can help with that. I pray for any special intentions the person may have. I also take this time to pray for my children’s future spouse. During that day, I try to spend a little bit of one-on-one time with my children- something simple like helping with cooking dinner, a purposeful conversation, a board game, etc. One-on-one time can be scarce in a large family, so I love making this intentional!
Daily Tabs:
- Extended Family: I am one of three children, and my husband is the oldest of seven. I printed a photo of each family member and put it behind the daily tabs so everyone is remembered at least once a month.
- “Power of a Praying” prayers. I really do like these books, and I printed out all 30 days of prayers from “Power of a Praying Wife” and put them behind the 1-30 tabs. I printed them from this blog, and folded them in quarters to make them fit in my box.
Features Of Prayer Box Download:
- It’s an instant download, so you can purchase and have it delivered to your inbox right away!
- I designed it to involve as little cutting as possible. I also put as few “outline” lines around the cards as possible (For those of you who are OCD and obsessed with cutting the actual lines off around the edge, you’re welcome.)
- I designed them with colored edges for organization but white middles to save on your ink.
- The weekly tabs have the mystery of the rosary for the day, the day’s dedication, and a small prayer at the bottom to accompany the dedication. I also matched beautiful Catholic artwork to each day’s dedication. The Friday card even has a little reminder to abstain from meat or choose an alternate sacrifice for the day.
- The monthly cards all include beautiful Catholic artwork paired with short, traditional prayers. Many of these are pictures of the Saints.
- There are three tabs in the back. One says “seasonal” and is for storing cards you want to pray at different times of the year, such as special prayers for Advent, Lent, the Easter season, etc.
- Another tab in the back says “Other” and is a place for you to store extra cards, such as a novena you aren’t currently using or extra holy cards.
- The third tab in the back says “Answered.” This tab was a request from my friend, Stacy. So if you’re praying for someone who is ill and they recover, you can file it there. Stacy thinks that over the years, it would be beautiful to look back on what you’ve prayed for.
The best feature is that it’s very affordable! You can download all of the prayer box dividers for just $3.
When you purchase this download, you will receive an email within minutes containing the file. It is in pdf format, so you will need Adobe Reader to open it. Your link will expire after it has been clicked 5 times, so you need to save this file onto your own computer. Don’t click the link 5 times from a device that cannot open pdf’s, such as a phone.
Supplies Needed To Build Your Own Prayer Box:
- The printable prayer box dividers download.
- An index card box, size 3×5 – I got an old metal one at Goodwill, and spray painted is gold with the paint left over from my Mass kit. Then, I took a small crucifix I saved from a broken rosary and super glued it on the front. Although I like this box, I really wish that it latched shut for easy travel, but for now, I keep a rubber band inside for when I need it to stay shut.
- White Card stock, 12 pieces- You’ll want to print your prayer box dividers onto card stock to make them sturdy
- Laminating Pouches for 12 sheets- I’m going to make this a strong suggestion. I suppose you could make it work with just card stock, but it’s super nice to have them laminated! I love my laminator. If I could fit in it, I would run myself through because it just makes everything better. If you have no laminator, I’ve heard you can use the laminating pouches with an iron to seal them, or you can get self-sealing pouches for about $1 each; no laminator is needed.
- Scissors
If your prayer life could use some sprucing, I highly suggest trying these prayer box dividers. They have been a big blessing in my life. As always, the proceeds from this site help fund the production of future Catholic resources.
Related Posts:
- Printable Prayer Starters For Kids
- Prayer Copywork For Kids
- DIY Easy Portable Kneeler
- Portable Prayer Table For Kids
- Novena Counter For Kids
Thank you for sharing this Lacy!! I have a friend who does something like this and she keeps 3 by 5 cards as prayer reminders. When her card fills up, she mails it to the person she was praying for! Believe me it is humbling to see that someone prayed for you in a disciplined way!
What a great idea! You could also take your Christmas cards and file those in your box to remember to pray for those people throughout the year.
That’s a fantastic idea! I think I’m going to do that- I haven’t gotten rid of mine yet. 🙂
Lacy, I just downloaded the dividers. They are truly lovely! Thank you for this and all of your wonderful ideas.
Happy to hear that you like them! I spent a lot of time trying to make them right. I’m always more likely to use something beautiful rather than something that’s been slapped together. And I’m a real sucker for art. 🙂
This is amazing! I have too many other resolutions right now to add another, but I am keeping this in my mind and heart for the future! I might even make it a Mom’s night for our homeschool group–getting together to assemble our boxes! (We will each purchase our own, of course. No copying among our honest group!)
What a great idea!
this is amazing!!!! I have fretted over promising prayers for someone and forgeting…often asking generic prayers for “those I promised prayers for”.
I just caught this via a Facebook share. Very cool! I have been thinking of doing something similar to your Prayer Box using homemade Open Office templates and 4 x 5 index cards, and your post has inspired me to get off my butt and actually do it! Thanks for sharing this!
I can’t thank you enough for sharing this idea. God led me here through Pinterest. My prayer requests consist of a bunch of scraps of paper taped to my computer cabinet (until my toddler rips them down). This is just wonderful! And thank you for the link to the daily prayer for our husbands & children. I have the books, read them years ago, but they now collect dust on my shelf. I was just thinking yesterday that I need to start those prayers again daily, as my husband is struggling with sobriety and I am feeling overwhelmed. I can’t quite find the words to express how grateful I am to read this post.
So glad you found it! Yes, sometimes when there’s something specific my husband or children are struggling with, I’ll move that corresponding prayer behind the daily tab. Very helpful to be able to shuffle things around like that. 🙂
I made my own prayer book similar to your prayer box. I have daily prayers as well as certain ones for certain days of the week, example Thursday’s for Priests, Fridays the Holy Souls, Saturdays for the Dying, etc.
Lacy, this is wonderful. I have an old system that doesn’t work so well for my life right now, and between homeschooling and a new baby and everything else, I just haven’t had time to develop anything for myself. You are such a gift- thank you for being so generous with your time and talents. Lots of lives are touched through your work…just think of how many more prayers will actually be said (by me, anyway!). 🙂
That’s so sweet- I always hope that my resources help others, but it’s God that spreads it, not me! 🙂
I love this!
Thank you! I can’t wait to get mine printed. God Bless!
You are truly amazing and generous.
I love this! I am not very disciplined in my prayer life. This will help me focus.
God bless you!
I also prayer for my kids’ future spouses. Such an extremely important thing.
I just downloaded this file! It looks wonderful! Very doable, just what I need. I also couldn’t help noticing your kids names. I also have an Annabel and a Violet! I’ve always loved the name Julian but we had 5 girls in a row! We just had a boy and we went with George. If you need any inspiration, Noel, Penelope and Magdalena are our other kids! ; )
Anyone want to print & make & laminate these for me for a fair price? $20-25? Totally not kidding: add my first name to schutz and send it to my gmail account and let’s talk!
Lol! This is hilarious! Any takers? 🙂
I got one, I got one! Thanks! 🙂
Just checking, your box is 3×5?
Yes, 3×5 🙂
LOVE this! I downloaded the tabs and, you probably mentioned it somewhere, but what size card box should I buy? 3×5 or 4×6?
3×5
Is it for 4×6 or 3×5? Just wanted to be sure!
Great question- it’s for 3×5. I’m going to update the post to say so. I can’t believe I forgot to say that.
Do you laminate the page first and then cut the cards out or do you cut out the cards and then laminate them? I usually cut out things first and then laminate but then I always get a little plastic border around the cards. Maybe my laminator isn’t very good? In your pictures I don’t see any plastic edging.
I laminated mine and then cut them. This way you only have to cut them once. My laminator has a special higher setting for laminating card stock. I didn’t have any trouble, but a friend of mine said the lamination peeled in a few places and she used a glue stick to hold it down.
lol I just offered up cutting those all those little tabs out for you 😉 So that you will help make some more Catholic moms holier.
I read this while on vacation and had almost forgotten about it. So glad a friend posted the link on FB today so I could order this …. going to be a great way to get Lent kickstarted (maybe even sooner)
Glad you re-remembered. 🙂
Fantastic idea!! Thank you so much for sharing!! I want to do this…Lord, please grant me discipline. 🙂 Lately, I’ve been the queen of popcorn prayers and I want to be more intentional with my prayer time. This should do the trick! Blessings to you. ~ Kim
Breathtaking artwork, beautiful cards and beautiful idea. Thank you so much! The artwork alone should draw us daily to our little prayer boxes.
In December it came to me to that for 2015 I should really be praying for the deceased. I’ve lost my parents and best friend in the last 4 years. I have so many cards from wakes that I decided to organize them by the month the person passed. I’m going to incorporate this into your beautiful system. Thanks Lacy! God Bless. ~Maureen
Great idea!
Isn’t it amazing that Jesus Who didn’t need to ask for things, had reminders on His body and we who need to pray constantly need reminders. After my father died, I wore a pony bead bracelet that reminded me to pray the prayers for the dead daily.
…Lane Cedar Chest company used to give away small wooden boxes with a key. You might look around for one of those.
Ok I’ve purchased this and then today bought pastel cardstock. I don’t have a color printer is this going to work with black ink only?
Drats… …
And if I print with black ink and decide I don’t like it, will I be able to print a second time (once I find a color printer to borrow)?
Or is there a way to transfer the file to a stick so I can take to Staples/Office depot for printing? I know they have color printers
Any of my downloads you purchase you can save to your computer so you can print multiple times.
Super.. I’ve now downloaded and plan to copy to a stick so I can go to a place with a color printer
I haven’t printed it in black and white, but I would think it would be nicer in color. You could have it printed somewhere like Kinkos or Staples if the color is really important to you. It won’t hurt the functionality of the prayer box.
Lacy,
This is wonderful. I am working on my box right now! This is amazing. I want to be a prayer warrior and thanks to you I might just be able to do it. I have been following your website for years and you don’t cease to amaze me.
blessings.
Thank you! And so happy to hear it. 🙂
A Catholic version similar to Charlotte Mason’s bible verse memory card system, great idea! We’ve used the CM memory system since 2006 in our home school and it works great for memorizing quotes, prayers, etc. but this looks like a great way to “simply pray” vs. being worried about memorizing but I’m sure both will happen over time. 😉
Thank you! I am so grateful for a Catholic version that is also beautiful. I just bought it and can’t wait to put it together tomorrow. Summer is a great time to start this new habit of scripture memory, when our homeschool days are lighter.
Got them – thank you so much!
I absolutely LOVE this concept! I already downloaded my cards and I will be making one for myself and 2 more for my friends from church:) I am sure they will love them and use them each day! Thank you Lacey for sharing all your wonderful Catholic crafts and inspiring ideas……GOD BLESS YOU and YOUR FAMILY!!!! PS: I will be downloading the Nativity Peg Dolls as well, for my granddaughter, who is due August 30, 2019 🙂 I thought this would be a beautiful 1st Christmas present for her (she is #24 of my grandchildren)! I am truly BLESSED!
We just finished assembling our box! This was one of my new liturgical year’s resolutions. My kiddos and I went to AC Moore and picked out a wooden box and 3D stickers to decorate it and had so much fun decorating the box and then finding our scattered prayer cards to organize. This is going to make our prayer life so much more meaningful! Thank you so much, Lacy!
Love this idea I’m going to try this as soon as I can
I like this but I follow the Trinitine Mass. Any plans to make this in a Traditional version? Three cycle Mysteries of the Rosary and some different monthly calendar intentions.
Hi Miriam,
Lacy doesn’t currently have any plans to make any alternate versions of this set. Sorry!
Angie, Catholic Icing Project Manager