Tag: prayer

Lingua Cordis

I saw this the other day and I realized that I need to pray this prayer more often. Sometimes it is so easy and clear to understand what we are want to ask God to support us in. We come to prayer or meditation with a list similar to what a kid brings to Santa Claus, even if the list includes lofty, selfless things like for someone else’s healing, or for peace in wartorn countries. But other times, our heart is panging us. Situations in our lives keep playing over and over in our heads, like a broken record, but we can’t even define what the real problem is in these situations. We want the itching to stop, but we don’t know where to scratch. I often pray for clarity in my life. And when I do this, I want real clear clarity. I want the window to my soul to be so extremely clear that I could accidentally walk through it and not even realize there’s a window there. I want the kind of clarity that knocks you so hard on your head, that when you wake up, you feel absolutely stupid for not realizing “the truth of it all” from the get-go. I want God to hear my heart and then translate its message in perfectly simple straightforward English with the exact next steps to take. And God usually laughs at these demands and tells me that I need to stop relying on translators. “Quiet down and learn the language of your own heart. All of the answers you have ever needed I gave to you there, but only you can understand your own heart’s language.”

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

Here is the question of the day from 3000 Questions About Me:

878. What is one thing you won’t admit to yourself?

A Mother’s Heart

Inspiration Mondays: New Possibilities - Mango Muse Events

There is nothing stronger in this world, yet paradoxically more vulnerable than a mother’s heart. A mother’s heart holds so much. It holds so much love and pride and vision and fear and worry and resilience and a load full of understanding and empathy for all of the other mothers’ hearts. A mother’s heart rarely breaks, because it can’t. Mothers’ hearts are the webbing of humanity’s entire existence and this webbing cannot afford too many bottomless holes of despair. My prayer is for all of the hearts, of all of the mothers. May those of us who are stronger and safer right now, keep the beat for the other mothers’ hearts who are bleeding down to a faintly beat.

If Our Moms Ruled the World | Wise old sayings, Empowering women quotes, Proverbs

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Shoulder

It’s interesting to me, when you are going through one of your darker periods in life, how much you cling to your mundane chores. Your to-do list becomes your savior. Doing laundry becomes your lifeline. Waiting in queue on a customer service call with bad elevator music, can actually be peaceful and lulling. Doing anything is good. Idle time is scary as hell.

Yesterday, getting groceries was cathartic. A month ago, getting groceries was just another one of the routine banalities of my life. I also look at people differently. I understand that there could be a lot of pain underneath the clerk’s pleasantries. I understand that someone’s grumpiness could be caused by medications that otherwise save that person’s life. One of the rare blessings of suffering, is a true, pure empathy for the human condition. I even empathize with people who numb out, and try not to feel anything, ever. Empathy is a heavy, overwhelming load to bear sometimes.

Fear and sadness sucks the energy right out of you. Taking a shower sometimes takes monumental courage and momentum. And then all the “shoulds” start crawling around in your brain: “You should take care of yourself, so that you can take care of your loved ones.” “You should remember that your family and friends deserve attention for the good and bad things going on in their lives, too.” “You should live in faith, and not fear.” “You should divide your attention and focus equally among your four children, not just your child with epilepsy.” “You shouldn’t feel sorry for yourself. Count your blessings.” “You should stop hovering over your man-child with epilepsy, and help him live as normal a life as possible.” “You should keep the romance alive in your marriage, or you’ll lose even more.” “You should keep writing your blog, or maybe you shouldn’t.” “You should find the cure for all that ails your family, and maybe even heal the entire world, while you are at it.” My “Shoulder” in my brain is a total bitch and a strict task-masker. My Shoulder loves to generate anxiety. My Shoulder loves to control me with shame. My Shoulder tells me that I’ll never be enough. Someone very wise once told me to never, ever should on myself. I wish that I could stop my evil Shoulder. I should do a better job with that. Isn’t it ironic that a “shoulder” is something that we are supposed to be able to lean on in tough times?

Recently, I found a prayer in an old wallet of mine that has been one of my favorite prayers for a long, long time. It’s actually the 3rd Step prayer from the 12-Step programs. I have been praying it a lot lately. Not because I should, but because I can, and because it feels good. This prayer resonates with me. Maybe it will help you, too.

“God, I offer myself to Thee – to build with me and do with me as Thou wilt. Relieve me of the bondage of self, that I may better do Thy will. Take away my difficulties, that victory over them may bear witness to those I would help of Thy Power, Thy Love, and Thy Way of Life. May I do Thy will always. Amen.”

Friends, I pray to bear witness of my victory over my difficulties, to anyone whom it will help. I do this, quite honestly, because I desperately want victory over my difficulties, but also, I truly like to help people. It feels good. I think that this is what we are meant to do for each other. Please know that despite being in a trough period, I love life. I see beauty all around me, all of the time, to the point that sometimes it even overwhelms me. Love is the miracle, and it never leaves us. Love can never be destroyed. Love sustains all.

Are you passing on love or are you passing on pain? Heal your pain and pass on love.

The Worry Fix

“Any concern too small to be turned into a prayer is too small to be made into a burden.” – Corrie ten Boom

Quotes also attributed to Corrie ten Boom, a Dutch watchmaker and a writer, who, with her family members, helped many Jews escape the Nazi Holocaust, by hiding them in her home:

Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength.

When a train goes through a tunnel and it gets dark, you don’t throw away the ticket and jump off. You sit still and trust the engineer.

I had read these quotes, many times before, but I had never heard of Corrie ten Boom. When I looked her up, I thought that she would have been Native American, truthfully, because of her unusual last name. Her most famous writing is the book called The Hiding Place, based on her family’s experience of helping the Jews in the Netherlands. Corrie ten Boom’s entire family was eventually arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned for their being part of “the resistance movement.” Her father and her sister died while they were detained in the camps towards the end of World War II.

This is one of my favorite quotes from the Wikipedia page about Corrie ten Boom:

“Ten Boom was initially held in solitary confinement. After three months, she was taken to her first hearing. At her trial, ten Boom spoke about her work with the mentally disabled; the Nazi lieutenant scoffed, because the Nazis had been killing mentally disabled individuals for years in accordance with their eugenics policies. Ten Boom defended her work by saying that in the eyes of God, a mentally disabled person might be more valuable “than a watchmaker. Or a lieutenant.”

I think that she was on to something there.

Corrie Ten Boom was a devout Christian, but this is an interesting quote about how her father felt about the importance of helping the Jews during World War II:

“A devoted reader of the Old Testament, he believed that the Jews were the “chosen people” and told the woman, “In this household, God’s people are always welcome”. The family then became very active in the Dutch underground hiding refugees and honoring the Jewish Sabbath. The family never sought to convert any of the Jews who stayed with them.”

When I write about God or prayers in my blog, I am not trying to convert anyone to any kind of thinking or belief system. I understand and respect that not everyone prays. There are many paths to God, and “God” holds different meaning for everyone. I believe that there are many paths to a Higher Power and I believe that most people have a higher power, even if that higher power is hard for an individual to conjure or to grasp and fully understand. I personally consider myself to be far more spiritual than I am religious.

I wrote the first quote in one of my inspirational journals because I am guilty of worrying way too much. About just about everything. I worry about how much that I worry. I pray a lot, too. About just about everything. I’ve been known to pray to God for guidance to a better air freshener. (By the way, the answer was Bath & Body Works Eucalyptus Mint plug-ins. They smell really good.) The first quote reminded me a lot about the story of the little boy whose father was the town’s Expert Toymaker. The little boy was very frustrated with his favorite toy, which had been broken for quite some time.

In anger and dismay, the little boy yelled to his father, “WHY haven’t you fixed MY TOY?!?!”

His father, the Expert, calmly answered, “You never put it into my hands to fix.”

My Prayer

Dear God,

I am so fatigued by the pain, anger and divisiveness that is constantly creeping its way throughout our collective being until it bursts out into the open, in the physical form of unspeakable acts of violence and cruelty.  Please guide me through this fatigue to the reality that what appears is not real.  The real truth is that we are all One.  We are all Love.  Like a broken mirror, broken into a gazillion little pieces, we are still all one in the same.  Each little shard of this mirror would still show the same reflection of You, of Light and of Love, even if some of the shards are completely clouded by the filth of fear, pain, and hate.  Please help me to see the light in all beings, no matter how dim it appears.  Please remind me of the real, true power of the collective light of Love.  Help me to notice that we are all just different cells with different purposes in this Great Body.  Remind me that we all make up the trunk, branches, leaves, and roots of this beautiful Tree of Life.   You are the vast ocean, dear God, and we are the waves.  We are all One.  There are many, many paths that lead to you, God.  Please help us to all turn our faces, our hearts, and our intuitive compasses, to the way that leads to the Light, so that all of our paths to You are headed to the only destiny that there really is, in the end.  This is the destiny of Love.

Thank you for my faith and my hope and my inner peace that All is Well.

Amen.

Inner Internet

Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn’t. – Erica Jong

I have often repeated this quote to my family.  What happens when you spout quotes to the people you love, is that they often spout them back to you.  This one was recently boomeranged back to me via my husband.  At least I know that my family members are listening to me, I suppose.

I tend to get obsessive when I want a definitive answer to something that is bothering me.  I look up every website that might even just have a word that will help me with a problem or an issue.  It’s embarrassing to see even Google reminding me that I had just been at that same website two minutes ago or “you have visited this website many times.”  Why is it that I know that nothing will be different on the website that I just visited 2 minutes prior and many times before that, but I’m still hoping for a different glean of knowledge?

I believe that we are designed by the Divine to have the answers within us.  I’m a believer in prayer, but the older I get the more I realize that there is often a better plan for me and my situations than my limited vision sees.  My prayer is more and more often, “Help me to know that the answers are already within.  Help me go with the flow, knowing that everything is in accordance to Divine plan and help me to trust that knowledge.”

I watched a speaker recently who said that if we pray for patience, often we are going to get a long line at a bank.  Experience is our teacher.  God isn’t going to always swoop in and make things easy for us.  We parents know how hard it is to watch our children struggle to learn to walk, and then to read, and then to drive and then to drive off towards lives of their own.  We want to make it all easy for them, but we know it’s not for their best, so we sit on our hands, send our outpouring of love to them and know, in faith, that they are going to be okay.  We know that they have all of the tools to handle life, right inside of them, if they get quiet enough to listen to their own inner wisdom.

I think that we must have a built-in internet, full of knowledge and understanding right at the click of our hearts.  The good thing is that this “inner internet” doesn’t send us embarrassing reminders that we have been at this fork in the road 82 times already.  Our inner wisdom has the patience to know that we will “get it” eventually, because we already “have it”.  We just have to come to the acceptance of what we already know.