Praying by Accident

            Lately, I’ve struggled with my prayers. I want to say a meaningful prayer from the heart with words so special that they leave my lips and go straight up to God. Instead, I find myself murmuring dry prayers with words tirelessly repeated from past prayers. I feel like they leave my lips and disappear into thin air before going anywhere. Of course, I know God listens anyways, but at times I wish I could say a prayer worth hearing.

            My mom always told me the best model for praying was the Lord’s Prayer. She said if I didn’t know what to say, to just follow it, but in my own words. Praise the Lord, ask for what I need, ask for forgiveness, thank Him for what I have and end with a beautiful Amen. At first, this helped me greatly when I didn’t know what to say and it had much more meaning for me.  

            Eventually, though, it was almost like I had come up with my own Lord’s Prayer. It was no longer unique, but felt memorized and rehearsed. Once I noticed this, I’d try to change it, but then the altered version became the new memorized and rehearsed version.

This cycle went on for a while until I gave up and just stuck with the latest version, praying the same prayer over and over until it felt like I was reading off of flash cards. The prayer became so engrained in my mind that my mind wandered while I prayed. I’d say my lines while, separately, worrying about an upcoming test.

New situations occurred, causing me worry and stress or thankfulness and joy, but I’d hesitate to put them into my practiced prayer, as if that messed up my countless rehearsals. Afterwards, though, I’d feel that my prayer was empty, lacking my emotions over these new situations. What was I doing wrong?

Soon enough, something happened. I found myself driving my car, walking to class, taking a break from studying, and all the while talking, just plain old talking, to God.

God, please help me get there safely in this thunderstorm because I’m so scared.

God, thank you so much for this gorgeous day. I really need it.

God, I’m so worried and I can’t stand it and I just don’t know what to do.

At first, I didn’t see this as anything important. I was just talking, no big deal. I’ve realized something, though. These little snippets I came up with on the spot were prayers full of more emotion and meaning than my dry, lengthy memorized prayer ever did. I was praying by accident, but somehow it worked.

Perhaps these prayers aren’t well manicured and polished, but it’s taken me a while to realize that my prayers don’t need to be. I just want to talk to God, my best friend, my counselor, my parent, my listener. Whatever comes out of my mouth that way will be like beautiful balloons, filled with and colored by my emotions, carrying my words up to God.

Is that wrong? I don’t know. All that I know is that I’ll never stop talking.

When God’s Hands Are Better than My Own

            There’s this serious problem I have. I always want to do absolutely everything by myself. If I can avoid getting any help whatsoever, I do so. I’m the typical person who never reads the instructions and doesn’t like to ask teachers for help. In group projects, I’m the one to take the lead. I like things to be under my control and no one else. In other words, I like to take all matters into my own hands.

            Yet, there are times when my hands can only hold so much.

            Sure, I can play video games without looking at the instruction manuals. I can figure out how to do a homework assignment on my own. I can lead my group so we can get the project done. I can even make decisions based on what I believe without help from anyone else. These are things I can control and easily fit into the palms of my hands.

            But what about what I can’t control?

What do I do when a friend of mine comes to me with a problem I can’t fix? When I disagree with an important decision a family member makes? When something completely random and terrible happens to someone I love? When I worry about where my future is heading? What do I do when the things I most desperately want to control are so out of my control that I don’t know what to do?

            I’ll try to fit everything into my hands, but I’ll always fail. It’s like trying to carry too many things at once. Just when I think I have a grasp on everything, something will fall to the floor. I’ll pick it up and try to get the hang of things again, but then another thing gets added and then another until my hands are so full I feel completely weighed down and all I want to do is give it all to someone else to deal with.

            That’s when God comes in.

            I’ll suddenly realize God’s hands are right there, under me, waiting for me to drop it all so He can catch it. But then a funny thing happens. As I try to let go, the more I end up holding on, even though I’m doing a terrible job at it. Even if just moments ago I wanted someone to take it all from me, when the chance actually arrives, I find it increasingly difficult to do so.

            So there I’ll be, wobbling under the weight of all these things I’m struggling to control and hold onto with my two small hands, and God will always be right under me, His greater and stronger hands open and waiting. Then, as difficult as it will be, I’ll slowly let things go, one by one, dropping them into His ready hands with my eyes closed and hoping He’ll catch them.

            And God? Well, I need to trust He’ll know just what to do with it all. 

A Valentine’s Day Post: Knowing about Love

Like the famous song by Foreigner, I think that we all, at least at some point in our lives, want to know what love is. I know I’ve always personally wanted to know. Yet, if I ask fifty different people what love is, I’ll get fifty different answers. A young girl in her first relationship might tell me that love is amazing while a heartbroken guy might tell me the opposite. A mother might tell me that love is family while a single woman might tell me love is friendship. There are even people who say love doesn’t exist at all.

            I don’t agree with any of them.

            If I had to give one word to describe love, it would this: God.

I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to love as much as God does. He loves me, even when I don’t love myself. He loves that annoying kid I never liked. He loves that teacher I never got along with in high school. He loves that random guy I bumped into today. He loves my ex-boyfriends. He loves my friends. He loves my family. He loves everyone I have never loved, everyone I have once loved, everyone I currently love, and everyone I will ever love.

I wish I could love like that.

Sometimes I find myself thinking that love is a paradox. Love is complicated and simple. Love is easy and difficult. Love is happy and sad. Love is good and bad. I believe that God breaks that paradox, though. For God, love is simple, easy, happy, and good. I can’t speak for anyone else, but that’s how I want to see love as too. I want to love just like God does.

I think that to love is to feel God. There’s this connection between loving God and loving others. When I love my parents, my siblings, my friends, I feel what it is that God feels for me. That affection, protectiveness, worry, care, and happiness I feel for them is what God feels towards everyone. On the flip side, though, when it comes to loving others, there are times I find it difficult to. For example, if a friend makes me angry, I find it difficult to love them when I feel like the Hulk. But then I think about how God loves me no matter what, even if I’ve done something to make Him angry, and that helps me to love again. I learn to love God through my love for others and learn to love others through God’s love.

            To me, God simply is love and, personally, I don’t think that there could be any greater valentine than that. 

Hi, I’m Me, and You Are?

            There’s this funny thing that everyone, and I mean everyone, likes to do. Label. We put a label on everything. No one is innocent. We all like to label places, actions, objects, even people. We even label ourselves in this aimless attempt to come up with some form of a personal identity. Everyone asks the same question, “Who am I?” Everyone also wants a simple answer, as if one word could sum up all of the labels into one.

            I think I’ve found that word: Me.

           

            Don’t get me wrong. I still have to use labels to describe myself to other people. If they ask me what I want to be, I say, “writer” and if they ask me what I do, I say, “student.” If they ask me my age, I say, “teenager” and if they ask me my faith, I say, “Christian.” The truth is though, that not a single one of those responses makes up who I am entirely. Not one.

            Personally, I’ve always struggled with this whole identity business. For example, I’m Hispanic, but I’m also American. I always joke by saying that I’m too Hispanic for Americans and too American for Hispanics. I tried to pick which side I belonged to the most, but the truth is that I’m both, and I’ve had to come to terms with that.

Once I realized that neither label could stand alone to fulfill my identity, I began to think about how no label at all could describe me. It made me wonder about my identity. It made me ask myself, “Who am I?”

           

            Then, when the campus ministries at my school came together last week for a concert with the exact theme of “Who Am I?” I thought about this even more. The topic was about having an identity in Christ as God’s children. It got me thinking and I think I’ve come up with a conclusion I can accept.

God loves me for who I am, not for what society tells me to be or says I am, not even for what I say I am. No matter what, I’m His, and I’m not His as a Hispanic or as an American. I’m not His as a writer or as a student. I’m not His as a teenager or even as a Christian. I’m just His as me.

           

            Now, “me” is made up of a numerous amount of labels, given to me by others, as well as myself. Separately, not a single one can even come close to describing who I truly am, but together they come just a little bit closer. The truth is though, when it comes to my identity, the only word that can faithfully sum up all of who I am is, “me.”

            I’m “me” and if that’s good enough for God, well, then that’s just good enough for me too.