"Heaven, please lead the prayer for us." One colleague requested during one meeting.
"I can't. I don't know how to pray." Heaven replied.
That is my usual line when it comes to abrupt prayer "requests" during meetings and sessions. Although when someone asks me to write prayers for them, I would usually agree since it does not require me to think on my feet and allows me time to really think about how I wanted the prayer to go.
But then, that is only because I am too conscious when I know that someone else is listening to my prayer. For to be realy, really honest, I do not know how to pray.
Our English teacher in high school taught us a prayer format where you were supposed to start by praising and thinking God. However, over the years, I forgot the format she taught us...And until now, I never bothered to look it up or to even ask.
Because when I pray, I usually do that after listening to Hillsong United or watching a music video of hillsong united. Then, I would be too overwhelmed with such emotion inside that I would start to cry and pray...with all my heart.
After that, I would not remember what I said, what I prayed for, what I asked God...I would just feel a strange sense of peace and security that will last for awhile and disappear in the gruelling and quite hectic labor of the day.
Then, I would do the same again before I go to bed and that same sense of calm and peace would descend. The same kind of peace I usually feel when I am inside the Adoration Chapel in front of the Parish Church.
Currently, I am using an old Our Daily Bread ( a throwback from 2009 which I never finished - I ended with January 12 and promptly lost the material and now, I saw it so daw sugpon lang) and the January 13 entry was quite affecting.
It quotes Job saying "I will speak in the anguish of my spirit."
It went on to add several prayers that are of an almost vitriolic nature...
This made me stop for a while and ponder.
If we speak from the depths of our heart, as we should when talking to God, then, we will not always be able to present a good front to Him. There will be times when we really will not be able to help ourselves. There will be outburst, cries of despair, angry outbursts...
But, no matter the nature of such outpourings, they remain prayers from us to our God...prayers by which we, as His children, communicate what we truly feel.
God wants us to honor that communication by being honest and true to Him in all ways. Saying and praying only good things when we talk to Him will not please Him. He would want us to open up to Him and tell Him our innermost thoughts and feelings.
Because He can take whatever we give - He loves us too much.
I take comfort in the knowledge that even if I cannot confide to anybody about my fears, my anger, my innermost thoughts, I can always do so with God.
