If you really want to know someone, don’t ask them questions. Walk through their house.
The walls will tell you. The books on the shelf. The photos on the mantle. The tchotchkes picked up from flea markets and roadside stands. A house is a map of the soul, every object a breadcrumb.
But here’s the thing: if you walked through my house a few years ago, you might’ve learned a lot about me — the bands I loved, the places I traveled, what kind of whiskey I drank — but you wouldn’t have known much about my faith.
It wasn’t until I stayed in an Airbnb in San Antonio that the realization smacked me square in the chest.
The living room was small, modest. But on the wall hung a framed image of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Next to it, a crucifix surrounded by three metal folk art hearts — the Sacred Heart, the Immaculate Hearts. It wasn’t gaudy. It wasn’t trying to impress. It was just there, quietly declaring what mattered.
When I met the owner, she wasn’t shy about it either. She told me how much she loved praying the Rosary, how she walked us over to Guadalupe like she was introducing us to an old friend.
And I thought: if prayer mattered that much to her, it showed up in her home. If faith was at the center of her life, then it was also at the center of her walls.
Could the same be said of me?
The answer, at the time, was no.
The Book That Woke Me Up
Back home, the thought wouldn’t leave me. And then I picked up Appointment with God by Michael Scanlan. It wasn’t a long book. I read it in an afternoon. But sometimes it only takes a sentence to shift your perspective.
He wrote: “The way to have a prayer time that really makes a difference in your life is to have a time, a place, and a person — God Himself — with whom you are meeting.”
That word — place — hung in the air like smoke.
I had time carved out, sure. I had God, of course. But a place? Not really. I prayed wherever I happened to be: the couch, the car, the edge of my bed before I fell asleep. None of it was intentional. None of it rooted me in the practice.
Jesus prayed in a certain place, Scanlan reminded me. He woke up early. He found solitude. The Gospels show Him slipping away before dawn to be alone with His Father.
If Christ Himself — God in flesh — needed a designated place, what made me think I could wing it?
The Atmosphere
So I started with the simplest thing: a chair.
Not a designer chair, not some sleek meditation bench. An old, sagging lounge chair that looked like it had survived a few too many moves. But when I sat in it, I told myself: This is where I meet God.
And slowly, my body learned. My spirit caught on. Every time I lowered myself into that chair, something in me shifted. My whole self said, it’s prayertime.
That’s what atmosphere does. It signals the soul.
And the truth is, you don’t need much. Forget the Pinterest-perfect prayer corners dripping with candles and linen curtains. Prayer doesn’t need aesthetics to work. What it does need is order.
If the space is cluttered, your brain will be cluttered. If the space is noisy, your heart will be noisy. So carve out a quiet corner. Clear away distractions. Add a lamp if the light is bad. Light a candle if it helps you focus.
The space doesn’t have to be pretty. But it does have to be set apart.
The Posture
Prayer isn’t just about words. It’s about posture.
We know this instinctively in church. We stand, sit, kneel. Our bodies rise and fall with the rhythm of the Mass. Each movement means something, even when we don’t think about it.
At home, posture is still part of the conversation. Some people kneel on rugs until their knees ache, and that ache becomes its own form of prayer. Some sit cross-legged on the floor. Others lay prostrate, face pressed to the ground, the ultimate surrender.
For me, it’s often that same broken-down chair. My body softens there. My breathing slows. My spirit knows the script.
It doesn’t matter if you have a kneeler, a bench, or a patch of carpet. What matters is that your body is telling the truth your mouth is trying to say.
The Articles
After a while, I began to bring in articles of faith.
A crucifix on the wall. A candle flickering. A rosary coiled neatly beside me. An icon of Mary, her gaze both tender and unyielding. Holy water in a small dish.
Each object was more than decoration. They were reminders. Anchors. Little signals to my wandering heart: pay attention, you’re not just anywhere — you’re in the presence of God.
Some friends built full altars, covered in images of saints and prayer cards, photos of people they were interceding for. Others kept it sparse, just a single candle and a cross. There’s no right way. What matters is resonance. What pulls your heart heavenward.
The Materials
You can’t have a prayer space without Scripture. That’s the foundation. My Bible lives there now, worn soft at the edges, underlined and dog-eared like a love letter I keep rereading.
And then, there are the books that have become companions:
- The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis.
- I Believe in Love by Jean C. J. d’Elbée.
- Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence by Saint-Jure and de la Colombière.
- Devotionals like Be Still by Lisa Brenninkmeyer and The Confident Woman by Joyce Meyer.
But maybe the most powerful tool is the journal.
Because prayer, for me, isn’t neat. It wanders. It wrestles. It doubts. Writing it down maps the journey. Looking back, I see old struggles, old questions, old petitions. I see where God answered in ways I never expected. I see how I’ve changed.
The journal reminds me that prayer isn’t a transaction. It’s a relationship unfolding over time.
The Why of It All
At the end of the day, it comes back to one truth: prayer doesn’t happen by accident.
We think it will. We think we’ll squeeze it in. But life has a way of swallowing the hours. If you don’t make space for God, the world will fill it with noise.
That’s why the space matters. That’s why the chair matters. That’s why the candle matters.
It’s not about building a shrine. It’s about training your soul to remember.
Every time you sit there, your body knows. Your heart follows. And slowly, prayer stops being something you squeeze in, and starts becoming the place you live from.
Louis Evely, the French spiritual writer, once said: “We live the way we pray, and we pray the way we live.”
I believe that. The way we shape our homes reflects the way we shape our hearts. A prayer space isn’t just a corner with holy objects. It’s a declaration: this matters to me. This is who I am.
So clear the corner. Light the candle. Consecrate the space. Make room for God not just in your heart, but in your home.
Because the way you pray is the way you live. And the way you live is the way you pray.
