In the 40 weeks leading up to my 40th birthday, I’m exploring 40 things I’ve learned in 40 years. Here’s to embracing life’s wonders & sharing the journey! To join me on the rest of my journey click here.

One of the things I have leaned on over the years is not just to pray for things, it’s been to pray through things. It doesn’t mean don’t pray for things, but this wording has been an important shift in my thinking about how to get through things.

Praying For: Sometimes there’s a fear that I have that if people pray for something, and it doesn’t happen, they will lose faith. There have been times in my life where I’ve prayed for something specific and if it didn’t happen exactly how I wanted it to, then I would get discouraged.

Praying through: This idea of praying through things allows it to feel more fluid for me and more of a continuous journey. I think it also helps me focus on the practice of prayer itself and how that can be so important. This shift has allowed me to trust that there is a larger story at play. Recently I prayed for a specific outcome, I was applying for that writer’s retreat and I thought, “if it’s a yes, I’ll know it was meant to be. If it’s a no, then I’ll know it wasn’t meant to be.” Well… it turns out it was a yes, but I never got that email and then lost my spot. So… It was somehow a yes and a no. Well… joke’s on me, huh? Hah! So, I felt a little lost. I had prayed for something very specific and the answer wasn’t clear. I knew what I would need to do was pray through that. I knew I was going to need to pray for patience and clarity from this experience.

In my life, there have been many places where I knew the outcome I wanted wasn’t quite realistic – let my grandparents live forever!? bring my friend back from death?! I knew I couldn’t quite pray for them to stay alive, but I could pray through the situation. I could pray for comfort, for support, for connection with family etc. So, over my years, I realized I really liked thinking about it as praying through things. It was a recognition that my specific situation might not change, but how I could move through that could be held in prayer and love.

Another example of praying through something is that I don’t always know what exactly it is that I want. So, I might not have an exact concrete thing to ask for, but I know I can pray through that lost feeling. I can pray to invite God to help me, be with me and guide me to what is right.

And… I will add that more recently I have been reminded that one can also ask for things. It’s not that we can’t! It’s wonderful to be clear with yourself and God/the universe what you want or need in your life. And you know, I am reminded that God provide exactly what you’re asking for!

So, it’s not to say don’t pray for things. I think I’m just offering that reminder to not give up on prayer or hope or faith, if that prayer isn’t given just as you imagined you needed it to. Time has given me the gift of looking back on my life and seeing moments where things fell into place in a different way than I had envisioned. But, I can see now, those moments of, “oh, if this wouldn’t have happened, then this wouldn’t have and this…” And I can see now the ways life came together in some really beautiful ways just not maybe on my exact timeline or at my exact request.

One of my favorite movie clips about prayer comes from “Evan Almighty.” Here is the movie synopsis:

Newscaster Evan Baxter (Steve Carell) leaves Buffalo behind when he wins a seat in Congress. Moving his wife (Lauren Graham) and family to northern Virginia, he seems to have it made, then God (Morgan Freeman) throws a crisis of biblical proportions at his feet: The Lord wants him to build an ark and line up all the animals two-by-two in preparation for a flood.

Towards the beginning of the movie, the wife prays for the family to be closer and more connected. Then later in the movie, the wife is upset at her husband (played by Steve Carell) because she feels he’s really lost it. He’s building this giant ark and says that God told him to do it. So, she’s left him and is out at a little diner getting some food and reflecting. She happens to have a conversation with “Al Mighty” the waiter (and what the viewer knows is that it’s God). Here’s the quick conversation:

What I love about this conversation is the invitation to think about what the opportunities are in every moment of our lives. Do we just get zapped with warm fuzzy feelings, or are we given ways to connect, to love and to feel that sense of warmth and belonging with others? There are ways we could certainly pick the Noah story and this movie apart theologically. But, what I hold to is that reminder that we can pray for things, but they might look different than what we thought. And we can pray through things and find the opportunities and the blessings within those moments.

Reflection Questions:

• What are your thoughts on praying for and praying through things?
• How do you hold to faith and hope through trying times?

Songs:

“Be Okay” by Lauren Daigle – I love this song and thought it fit well with that feeling of holding on to the deep trust and hope through prayer as you live your life. Then, recently I learned that she and Ellie Holcomb (another favorite artist of mine) wrote this in response to receiving a note from a young girl living with terminal cancer. It brings a whole new meaning to the song and to that deep trust of holding on to that deep hope!

“Believe” by Blessing Offor – This song talks about believing in God’s love even if things don’t happen exactly as you hope they would.

“Reflection” by Lost and Found – This song is a beautiful reminder that living our lives is a form of prayer. Letting our lives be a reflection of God’s love in the world.