Love is a seed of God, which then is nurtured within the church of our skin, within the home of our heart, so that we become a warm shelter for all, a light of love for all.
Regardless of whether you are religious or not, prayer is one of the most beautiful and powerful practices, especially for us as women. While meditation and prayer both offer many benefits, and many people think they might be the same, they aren’t – as they engage different parts of us. Meditation calms the mind and is amazing for self awareness and inner peace; but prayer is something that builds a bridge and opens us in a way not much else can. We often carry so much on our shoulders – responsibility, worries – and we forget what it means to release it all, how it feels to walk with a bit more lightness bodily.
Prayer opens us in trust and in surrender – two things which are absolutely crucial for our life. Prayer builds a bridge to God, and to our heart, and strengthen our spiritual core; it opens us as we open our palms to release some of the control or burdens we carry – and to realize that we’ll be held. We can only be held when we reach our hands. We can only receive when we open our palms. And this builds our trust and our faith that we don’t have to know it all, nor have it all figured out; it is not all up to us to do and we can always ask for help and be supported. Not all worries are for you to carry.
Prayer frees us of the need to know and to control. As human beings we need to know and to hold on some control because this gives us some stability and comfort in this unstable and uncertain thing called life. So we have numbers, categories, we are addicted to information and work, because this gives us stability; we have human skins to hold us and give some stability in our souls. But all nebeath heaven in unstable. And with our limited understanding and conditioned human minds, we’ll never know it all; and we were never meant to know it all anyway. The humility of this deserves to be treasured.
Beyond the hands of our human made clocks are the other clocks – unclockable, unstrikeable by our hands. There, time has its own timing. It is good to leave some pages unwritten, because this is where God breathes and miracles can shape to surprise us and enchant us. Surely, on the path of life, on the faithful path too, there will be a room for doubt. In this room we’ll cuddle up and speak our fears, worries, doubts, and have questions – and it’s good to have questions. It’s okay to wonder and go through the human emotions – because we are human after all. But doubts too are purposeful, they serve the path in their own ways. I’ve talked to Christian monks, priests, who have spent their entire lives in service, in monasteries, in prayers each day and each night – and they too share they have doubts sometimes. We all do. But you are never alone – and prayer reminds us gently of this.
There is a story of a man and his guardian angel. The man would always see the extre set of footsteps in the sand beside him, knowing his angel was always with him. But times came when the man struggled a lot – and when looking around him all he saw were one set of footsteps. “Why did you now leave me angel? I only see my own footsteps, were you not supposed to be with me, especially in these moments when I most need you?” So the angel appeared before him and spoke, “I am here. I always am. But during these times I carried you, and the footsteps you see are actually mine.”
Prayer is like a child on her mother’s shoulders, who is so high up that he can’t quite see her in her fullness. The child twists and turns, and even puts his tiny hands across his mother’s eyes; but she never drops him – she holds him tightly and tenderly. No matter what her child will do, she will not let go. God will not let you go. Prayer reminds you of this – because it is your bridge to connection to that which will never let you go, even if you can’t see it nor are aware of it yet.
Perhaps the most beautiful prayer of all is I love you. For we cannot speak these words if we hold fear and judgment in our hearts. For when we say I love you we are in trust and in sensitivity – because love is a surrender. Love is a transformative power that moves beyond the boundaries of the known, rational and touchable. Love is the truth of who we are, and you say and mean I love you you are truth, you are of heart and you are in heart. Because you can’t speak love from a place of judgment, falseness, emptiness, doubt or fear.
These three words gently put us in the presence of true power. They open the doorways to the heart and we become the conduit of light. When you speak these, repeat these, feel these, whisper these, mean these, you touch and allow another energy within you free of judgment, free of doubt and free of fear. These words bring clarity and resonate with the purity of God essence. Whenever we speak of love, for love and with love, we embody angels on earth, as the language of angels is love. If you say apple, they will only understand this and hear this if you spoke it from the purity and truth of your heart. So when we speak love, we embody angels on earth.
The deeper meaning of prayer is that it is a way of relating and connecting. It is a language, a relationship, a reaching towards something greater than us. It is a bridge to God. It is a remembering of true love. Prayer essentially allows us an opportunity for a deepening. It allows growth. It allows us an opening, and allows us to love – to love deeper, to love more and to love in more ways, shapes and forms.
Prayer is a way of surrendering – of going beyond the limitations of ourselves, beyond the rational and sensical, just like love does that too. Think of how love has made you feel and expand in your chest throughout your life. Real love. How through it, through the devotion, trust and surrender that it blessed you with, you opened your heart, minds and soul in a way not much else ever allowed you to.
In both love and in prayer, we open in vulnerability and humility, leaning ourselves towards eternal hands of warmth. Relationships, both within and without, grow deeper into trust. Intimacy deepens with that vulnerability also. And our faith deepens through the surrender. We deepen through the opening of our heart. Words are mini Gods, and prayer is a blessing, so when we speak to others, we can bless them also.
Open your hearts, open your palms, and you’ll be beautifully held. To trust is one of our hardest yet most important spiritual lessons in this life. And it is hard to trust, for we often tighten our grips during uncertainty and instability – and that’s a natural human thing to do. Prayer calls us to surrender that and to trust. Prayer, essentially, builds our strong spiritual core – becaue faith is powerful thing and can help us navigate through many challenging situations.
We are not praying, we are being prayed. We are being loved, held, and reminded of our humanness. Through prayer we build a connection to that which is beyond us and which is undestructible. We open up our palms, for only then we can be held by God, and receive from God; and simultaneously, we actually subtly learn how to hold another person’s hand also when it is needed of us to do so. We actually learn to love – to trust, to give and to receive, and to release control, humbling ourselves and becoming comfortable with not knowing it all. Because we’ll never know all there is to know in another person neither; there will always be wild unknown parts of the people in our life, our spouse and children and family and friends, and we need to learn to pay attention, always keep re-exploring each other’s inner worlds, and being okay with not always having all the answers.
To humble ourselves in prayer shows that we are humble enough to understand our humanness, and the power of love. So I believe that prayer goes beyond a religious practice; it is about our own understanding of our humanness and our ability to love more openly, more honestly, more intentionally. Living a life of prayer means just that: to be humble yet fully aware and conscious of how all is interconnected; to love more consciously, to be more grateful, and to be more kind as human beings.
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Cover art by Tina Xinia on Unsplash.
