Praying

I’ve always kept my spiritual life as private as possible. I have never been comfortable with discussing these things with anyone — not my family, not my friends, not even my husband.

I have always found myself turned off by people who become too preachy about their faith. Faith for me is private, it’s personal. It’s very strange therefore, that I am writing about praying/prayers. I guess I am just overwhelmed by the changes that I felt the need to share.

Prayer. I never really knew how to pray. This is a weird statement coming from a woman who spent more than half her life in Catholic Schools.  Technically of course, I knew how to pray. I knew the important prayers, I have written prayers for the whole school to pray. When it comes to my personal prayers though, I struggle.

I never know just what I should be praying about and how exactly. I used to find things too petty to bring up with God. I guess I imagined God to be like a boss who has so many things on his plate and cannot be bothered with all the other trivial things. There are also times when I’m praying and I’m wondering if I’m asking too much and if I’m dictating God, etc, etc, etc. 

I was reading this book called Love Dare (which is linked to the movie Fireproof – a Christian movie about marriage) and it said something to this effect.

- When your husband does something that annoys you or that irritates you pray about it. Offer it up to God. We’re often arrogant enough to think that we can change people’s attitudes, habits, personalities just by nagging them or by getting upset. It doesn’t work that way. We need God’s help. Pray about it.

This is something new to me. I never thought about doing that but I figured, what the hell. Let’s give it a try.

The thing that was annoying me at that time was how Ruy was at home. (I usually don’t like airing dirty laundry but I need to be specific to prove a point) I felt that Ruy didn’t spend enough quality time with Andrea.  (this WAS my FEELING. i don’t know if it was true or not at that time) So instead of nagging him, I prayed about it. I realized that the good thing about praying about it is it allows you to get the weight of your chest. After praying about it I felt a bit better and by the next day I’ve forgotten about it. Ruy surprised me when out of the blue he said “You know what. I’ve been thinking. I’m going to make a resolution. Starting today I’m going to change. I’m going to become the person I really want to be. I’ll start by making more time for Andrea”

I WAS BLOWN AWAY.  That one incident started my transformation. I started praying more. Sometimes more than once a day. Sometimes in the middle of the day out of sheer happiness I close my eyes and thank God for my awesome daughter. I thank God for the support of my mom, my aunt, my grandmother.  And I ask for things.  And so many more little miracles have been happening.

Not all my prayers have been answered. I don’t really care. I know they will be in a way that’s best for me.