Let Us Pray

“Let us pray.”

My cousin steps back from the podium. He closes his eyes, clasps his hands and bows his head. He closes the memorial for his grandfather with heartfelt expressions of gratitude, extolling the Lord’s goodness and mercy. But I don’t share his affections.

My first inclination is to roll my eyes, quickly followed by a jolt of fear that God will punish me for it. I shake off the thought, reminding myself I no longer believe that way. My brain knows this; my nervous system, however, hasn’t quite caught up.

My first prayers, at age three, were already life or death in nature.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

My mom’s kitty, Tiki, went out into the field and was mowed over by a tractor. She limped on her three remaining legs back to the house. Later that night, Mom explained to me that Tiki had died. I knew that when someone died, they didn’t come back.

When I recited my bedtime prayer, I wasn’t praying for my life alone, but for everyone I loved to also be spared. I lay in bed with the weight of that responsibility heavy on my little girl heart.

“In First Thessalonians 5:17, Scripture tells us to pray without ceasing.” Mr. Whiley wrote the short verse on the chalkboard. “As steady as your heart beats, as automatic as breathing, so should your communication with God be.”

I wasn’t sure how I was going to work that in with my everyday life, but I sure tried.

Walking the halls at school, I prayed my thoughts would remain pure—even when I dropped my books because a rambunctious schoolmate plowed down the hallway and collided with me. Or when a popular girl snickered at my knockoff jeans. Or when a boy I had a crush on ignored me.

Every minute of every day, I was acutely aware that every move I made, every thought I had, every deed I performed—good or bad—was seen by God.

When my baby was born prematurely, I was certain it was my fault for not praying vigilantly enough for his health. And after when postpartum depression clouded my thoughts, I prayed for forgiveness. I’d been taught that depression meant I simply wasn’t trusting God enough.

Wasn’t praying enough.

Prayer became my obsession.

I raised my hands to heaven, as if reaching high enough might ensure better results. And when my prayers didn’t seem to be heard, I took it as a sign that I wasn’t praying hard enough.

When my marriage dissolved after twenty years, I finally realized prayer had never been the solution I’d believed it was. Because if prayer could have saved my marriage, mine would have. I gave myself to prayer groups and church programs, to nothing short of begging on my knees in front of the giant wooden cross in the sanctuary.

I prayed without ceasing.

And still, things broke.

As I scan the chapel during this final prayer of the memorial, heads are bowed around me. I know many of these people find comfort here. I don’t begrudge them that. What I feel is grief for the little girl who was taught that prayer was her protection against death. For the teenager who believed God monitored every thought. For the young mother who believed her baby’s premature birth might somehow have been prevented if only she’d prayed harder.

Prayer had given me the illusion of control while making me responsible for everything I could not control.

For most of my life, silence felt dangerous. If I stopped praying, stopped pleading, stopped keeping watch, something terrible might happen.

My cousin finishes his prayer.

“Amen,” the room responds.

And for once, I don’t ask God for anything. I don’t apologize. I don’t bargain. I don’t beg. I let the silence come.

The little girl in me still waits for lightning.

The woman I am now lifts her head.