There’s a lot of people out there who I know of both in the recovery circles and outside of them who really struggle with the concept of prayer. For some it has become relatively synonymous with religion, which is considered poison in their minds, so they they want nothing to do with it. For others, it’s the process of how to pray that overwhelms them, so they don’t ever even try. I understand and relate to both of these points of view, but have come to see that a prayer can really be as simple as just saying four words: “God please help me!”
Prayer is defined as “a solemn request for help or expression of thanks addressed to God or an object of worship.” While that may indeed sound religious and lofty, the truth is in saying those words, “God please help me!”, that a powerful prayer has already been spoken and nothing more has to even be said. What’s funny though is that I once thought prayer had to be some great Shakespearian prose.
That probably stemmed from having grown up in a religious family who attended church week in and week out for many years. There, I heard many prayers that never made much sense to me and most were just words being read aloud. It’s one of the reasons why I don’t attend any church currently as I never feel my heart is being stirred when listening to someone else’s prayers or reading them in unison with others from a piece of paper. To me that just feels like there are specific rules or formats to praying and I don’t believe that there actually are. I feel that prayer is an intimate experience that’s different for each and every individual who utilizes it.
Most people usually picture a person kneeling with their hands clasped tightly together when it comes to prayer, except that’s only one of an infinite number of ways that people can pray. There’s also standing, walking, driving, eating, playing, lying down, jogging, running, hiking, working, and so on, are you getting my point? There really is no specific position, place, or format on how to pray. All it really takes is to just start. And for much of the past few years of my life when the excruciating pains that I’ve been going through are overwhelming me, I have struggled myself in doing that. But one day I heard a friend in AA speak at a podium who changed my own viewpoint on prayer. He said that in his weakest moments, when he feels most overwhelmed in life, and has no clue on how to start praying, he just raises his hands up in the air and says the words, “God please help me!” and then finds the rest of the words come forth.
Since hearing that man speak in AA, I have applied this countless of times in my own life on all those days when I don’t feel like I have the energy to go on anymore. I have lost track of how many places I have found myself crying out those words of “God please help me!” And I’ve come to see that in many of those times, I not only feel closer to God in saying them, but I find a whole conversation with God is then able to pour out of me.
Prayer doesn’t have to be a religious thing nor does it have to be filled with exalted words. It doesn’t have to be done in any specific format nor does it have to be carried out in any certain place either. Prayer truly has no boundaries, and there is no right or wrong way of doing it. Sometimes, all one needs to do when struggling with prayer, is to just take a moment to think about the difficulty their facing, then breathe deeply, and say those four little words of “God please help me!” It really IS that simple.
Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson