I’ve started praying again, thanks to a friend’s gentle encouragement. Mostly I just recite a list of names, offering them into the air, humbly asking for…
There’s the rub, I’m not sure what it is I’m asking for.
Help, I guess. Maybe it’s okay for it to be that simple. And to continually remind myself that I don’t know what help looks like.
I prayed for almost 50 years and then I stopped. I just couldn’t make it fit: all my asking with all the chaos and pain around me. In me.
In fact, it seemed the more I prayed, the worse things got. So I stopped. Because it felt futile and more than just a little disappointing.
I had been taught that “prayer changes things”. That such change could be wrought if one just prayed often enough, long enough, and in the right way.
C.S. Lewis said something along the lines of “I pray because I don’t know what else to do.” Even as I write (my paraphrase of) his words, my eyes fill. Because, yes, me too.
So here I am, invoking the name of Jesus over and around and through my simple list of names. No idea, really, if it makes any difference. No expectation of things changing. Certainly no sense of hope in a specific outcome. I try, again, to let go of it all: difference, change, outcome. I try, again, to hold onto just one thing: hope.
Because I don’t know what else to do.
by 
I think he also said – or is credited with saying: “I don’t pray to change God, I pray to change me.” It was that movie quote that actually got me praying again after many decades, because the act of doing it makes me feel so much better/calmer/peaceful.
What you’ve said here about prayer…yes. This . I’ve often wondered if part of my difficulty with prayer is the disappointment that comes with a different answer than I hoped for. I’ve slowly (oh, so slowly) begun to learn that the underlying expectation that it’ll go my way if I’m sincere enough has actually poisoned the beauty of what is actually happening when I connect with the unknowable supernatural-ness of life. I am so naturally inclined to lean into controlling things, even trying to use my prayers to control. gah… Maybe once I’m finally grown up I’ll get that problem managed. 🙂
Thank you for the honesty, vulnerability and truth. I also pray because I don’t know what else to do. It’s one of the few things that help me have some element of hope, and still reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus robe.