Hillary Clinton is praying "every day" and reading devotionals about "being strong in the midst of unpredictability" since losing the presidential race to Republican candidate Donald Trump, the former first lady's pastor has revealed.
Speaking to the Daily Mail, Rev. Bill Shillady said Clinton has been finding "strength and hope in her Methodist faith" as she grapples with the surprising election results. He revealed he began sending Clinton daily devotions in Easter 2015 when she told him she was running for the Presidency.
"Secretary Clinton found strength from these devotionals that I sent to her each day at 5am," he said. "My team of writers and I used passages of scripture, a reflection on that passage, and a prayer to support her depending on the events that were taking place. I would write the devotional after reading the headlines of the day."
The pastor said he spoke to Clinton a few days after the Nov. 8 election, and has since been sending her devotionals about "encouragement, being strong in the midst of unpredictability," which have given her "strength in the midst of the loss."
Rev. Shillady also claimed that the former Democratic Presidential candidate "cares about people" and "lives out her faith in her constant compassion and caring for the least, the last, and the lost."
At Clinton's encouragement, the pastor is set to publish 365 of the 600 devotionals in a soon-to-release book titled "Strong For A Moment Like This: The Daily Devotionals of Hillary Rodham Clinton." The devotionals will be organized into 12 themes, such as Forgiveness, Doing Good, Courage, and Women, the pastor said.
"I know how important it is for me as a person of faith to rise each morning and center my day around prayer, meditation, and spiritual thinking," Shillady explained.
Throughout her campaign, Clinton regularly touted her Christian faith, which she said allowed her to be more tolerant toward others with different religious beliefs.
"I am a person of faith. I am a Christian. I am a Methodist," she said during a 2016 campaign stop in Iowa, according to the New York Times. "I have been raised Methodist. I feel very grateful for the instructions and support I received starting in my family but through my church, and I think that any of us who are Christian have a constantly, constant, conversation in our own heads about what we are called to do and how we are asked to do it, and I think it is absolutely appropriate for people to have very strong convictions and also, though, to discuss those with other people of faith."
She added, "My study of the Bible, my many conversations with people of faith, has led me to believe the most important commandment is to love the Lord with all your might and to love your neighbor as yourself, and that is what I think we are commanded by Christ to do. There is so much more in the Bible about taking care of the poor, visiting the prisoners, taking in the stranger, creating opportunities for others to be lifted up, to find faith themselves that I think there are many different ways of exercising your faith."
But while many conservative Christians feel that abortion is sinful, Clinton last year said that religious beliefs against abortion have to be "changed."
"Laws have to be backed up with resources and political will," she explained. "And deep-seated cultural codes, religious beliefs and structural biases have to be changed. As I have said and as I believe, the advancement of the full participation of women and girls in every aspect of their societies is the great unfinished business of the 21st century and not just for women but for everyone - and not just in far away countries but right here in the United States."
