But What Does Prayer Look Like Post-“Deconstruction?”

By: JANA GREENE

Sometimes when I pray, I’m not even sure what to pray for. But when God brings someone to my mind, that’s the impetus to pray for them. A common misconception about reconstructing your faith is that prayer ceases. Of course, I can only speak for myself.

I don’t mean giving God “instructions” on how to help someone, which I used to call “praying with specificity.” I replaced elaborate prayers with simple trust in God, because the most eloquent prayers are “help help help” and “thank you thank you thank you” (as my favorite author Anne Lamott opines.)

I ask and then I try to listen. Because there is no wrong way to pray, and prayer is designed to be communication from one sentient being to a supreme being, no holds barred.

Once I saw a movie that recommended having a “War Room” – a physical place to go to pray where the reception is clearest to God and where mighty battles are fought in the heavenlies, waiting for our next words to change the outcome in supernatural realms.

So of course I decorated my closet with scripture and crosses aplenty. But all I managed to do was feel guilty that I wasn’t praying more (or right?) every damn time I had to grab a pair of shoes out of the closet.

Was I praying enough? What if I don’t and when I get to Heaven, God informs me that he really wanted to do this magnificent thing, but I was two beggings short of getting the outcome I desired.

See, that puts the onus on me. And the onus is not on me – it is on Love.

I don’t make a big show for myself now, prostrate in my literal prayer “closet,” striving, striving, striving to be the person “God created me to be.” Building a tower of Babylon with my puny, pleading words (which are beautiful to him, by the way, but his love is not dependent upon them.)

No. I mean that if you come to my mind during the course of my day, I am simply asking God to love on you in a way that’s tangible. God loves us through one another. Through nature, laughter, and hugs from friends.

If you have a need or a heartbreak, I focus my intention on your hurt as best I can and believe in advance that he is walking alongside you, no matter what event is anguishing you. Being a very visual person, I picture you in a cloud of love, total acceptance, resolution, and peace. I can’t describe it any better than that, but trust me, it’s better than that.

And I ask him to increase your awareness of him in and around us. Because he is always at work in and around us, even when we aren’t begging for his favor. I pray he uses me in any capacity he sees fit to convey his great love.

Even when words fail us.

His love never does.