My first prayer some 30 years ago started, "I don't believe in you, but someone told me to talk to you, so I am." And my life changed. And so did my practice of prayer. I came to believe in a higher power, and I came to believe in the power of prayer.
I'd love to say that I pray without ceasing, but I do, cease that is. I would love to say that I pray with understanding, but I often pray from a place of not-knowing. I would love to say that I pray with a deep sense of connection to the Spirit, but sometimes it feels that only a thin thread of hope connects me to anything.
What I can say is that prayer, the openness to connecting with a higher power, shifts my reality and my experience of it.
When I stubbornly refuse to pray, refuse to ask for assistance or guidance, the world can seem to be pressing in on me, feeling overwhelming and unmanageable. When I am convinced of a need to go solo, to handle a situation on my own, the experiences of panic and confusion often slide into my head, and if I persistently continue to withhold prayer, I begin to entertain thoughts of using alternative coping mechanisms, usually unhealthy.
When I open myself to spiritual guidance (whatever that actually is), the pressure decreases, and often recedes completely. The feelings of being overwhelmed and out of control evaporate like so much mist, as a path to follow becomes illuminated before me. The panic and confusion subside, replaced by trust and confidence, confidence that I am not alone, that I need not fly solo, and that I am held in love.
Rather than starting with a statement of not believing as I did with my first prayer, my prayers today start with the knowledge that I can never fully understand or comprehend this higher power before which I place my prayer, but I do believe.
