In the last couple of months, I've had several people take it upon themselves to suggest I pray to God for strength, guidance, for answers and understanding. Reminded me of the last time I stopped speaking to God, what I was going through, how difficult it was for me to understand exactly why those things had happened to me, what lesson I was supposed to have learned.
One of the most annoying and frustrating things to hear when you are in a state of distress and trauma is that "things happen for a reason." Annoying because that really isn't a comforting thing to say to someone in need of comfort. Frustrating because its usually true.
I remember being 15, feeling like a zeppo - someone who is a useless waste of space - wondering why it was that, while boys did seem to like me, none of them had the balls to do anything about it. I finally had a heart-to-heart with God. Kind of a "look, okay I get it, I'm supposed to be independent for the rest of my life, own my farm, raise my kids, and basically be a nun. Alright - that's fine for later. But right now? It's New Year's Eve and I wouldn't mind having someone to kiss at midnight...but I can accept that that isn't going to happen. Alright...well, thanks anyway." Because, just like every 15 year-old, you think that the course of your life is set at that age, that anything important to your story will happen right then. I was resigning myself to lonely, and God said "Honey please. Don't even try to think you know the plan - you have no idea."
At 15 I was sent exactly what I needed - after I had put my fate into God's hands. After I stopped trying to control everything in my life. It's funny that way, how it happened. Three years later when I was in that hospital room, looking out a window, wondering how much it would hurt if I just jumped, cause really, how could God care about me when he'd taken my son?, how I started looking at the ring on my finger, and thinking about the boy who had put it there...and I walked away from the window. Accepting that I didn't understand, couldn't begin to understand the path I was on, or how to walk it. But I did stop talking to God. It hurt too much to remember how very hard I prayed, watching the doctors and nurses work fruitlessly, to know that, after everything, there would be no son to teach to walk, to sing to, to kiss goodnight...
I couldn't sing at all for a long time after that. Not in the shower, not along with the radio. Music just left me. I felt like a hollow shell of myself. And I went on like that...until I remembered that the biggest tragedy of my life had not happened to me alone. And that's when I started praying again, asking for forgiveness for my neglect, asking for guidance and strength.
Since then, my praying has been different - especially recently. I tell my family that I am a "heathen", as my ideas on religion and spirituality are no where near conventional. Sometimes my prayers don't have any words - they are just feelings of gratitude. Sometimes they are tears. Sometimes they are love songs sung in the shower. Sometimes I dance my prayers and other times I paint them. Filling in the gaps that simple words leave...
Last night I met a woman who was looking to define prayer in its secular form. We had a fairly long conversation about it, but in the end, I found that I had expanded my own definition of what it meant to pray.
To pray is to love. Seems short, but it means a lot to me. Everytime we wish, we cross our fingers for luck, we kiss a child's forehead, we reach out to hold someone's hand for comfort, we embrace someone who has long been from our life - it is a type of prayer, a thank you to God that our loved one is safe, that the world is going the way it should, a request for a blessing, a sending of energy into someone who needs it more than we do. Sometimes it is accepting that, while God may not physically put in an appearance, we, as vessels, can be stand-ins.
That's kind of a bold statement. Which is okay, I like making bold statements. I know that even in my darkest moments I am blessed, protected, and loved. That if I get hit by a bus tomorrow (knock on wood - another prayer-type thing), I would have fulfilled what I needed to in my life. If I am blessed to live to a ripe old age, I will have that many more chances to make a difference for someone else, to be that vessel.
My prayers are extra short now - direct, to the point, and I say them constantly. When I open my eyes in the morning, when my phone rings and it is someone I love, when I wrap my arms around another, when I meet a beautifully-souled person, when I am hit with the beauty in the world, when I know, without a doubt, that my heart is pointed in the right direction...
Two words....
Thank you.
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