Forgetting How to Pray

By Gwen Johnson

I’m not having a great day today. I woke up crying, overwhelmed by everything going on around me. Social distancing is now extended to April 30. My Dad, suffering from Stage 4 Prostate cancer and no longer able to receive treatment, lives in NYC, where the fingers of the Corona virus reach up from the sewers and grab people off the streets. Meanwhile, I suffer with Cancer in my lungs, am quarantined, and unable to even go in the supermarket. My husband is a pilot. My son works in the supermarket. Who is going to bring the virus home first?

I get up every morning and I try to pray. I guess you could call it praying, but my prayers feel like pieces of confetti that I toss into the air, hoping somehow that the wind will pick up the shreds of my heart and bring them to the One that Heals. But they feel so weak. So small. So futile. And I can only cry because I’ve forgotten how to pray.

Now I pray for toilet paper. And maybe God can get rid of those stupid lawn bugs that keep finding their way to my spice rack. I pray my husband can fix the car so it doesn’t cost a fortune. I pray for mercy, and then the kitten jumps up and walks across my prayer journal, rubbing her head against the pen I’m trying to write with. It’s a small kind of mercy, but it is a mercy, something I can reach out and touch when what I want to do is reach out and touch God, to grab on to his legs and wrap around him, holding so tightly that even He can’t release my hands from his robes.

What do you do when you’ve forgotten how to pray? When your situation is so overwhelming that you have no words left to say? When you feel like you’re not being heard and your situation is only getting worse?

You go through the motions, and you pray anyway. Because God always hears our prayers, even when they feel like paper confetti.

I used to go to Panera to pray every morning. One day I wondered if I should keep doing it, because it was expensive, and it wasn’t the best way to expend our money. I would always order a bagel and iced tea. I got there early in the morning, 6 am, and the workers often gave me ‘benefits’. Sometimes I would get my drink for free. Sometimes I would get my whole meal for free. Sometimes I’d get nothing for free. It usually depended on who was at the register that morning. Well, that morning, I asked God if I should keep going there to pray. I said, ‘if You want me to stay home, make me pay for my whole meal today. If you want me to keep coming, then give me my meal for free. If you don’t care, then give me my ice tea for free.” Ridiculous thing to ask, wasn’t it? But I figured I had covered the bases, and I really wanted wisdom, so that’s what I asked. When I went inside, I headed over to my table to put my bags down before going to the register. To my surprise, my food and drink were already at the table waiting for me.

The employee had seen me drive in, so he got my food ready, and brought it over to my table. Not only was God telling me to keep going to Panera, He was telling me He was already sitting at the table waiting for me to spend time with Him.

It doesn’t matter if it feels like God doesn’t hear you, and it doesn’t matter how small your prayers feel - God is always right there listening to you.

Don’t give up just because things don’t change. Don’t give up just because you feel overwhelmed. Every prayer, no matter how weak, counts. In fact, it may be the weak prayers that count the most.