A Journey Through Prayer

Today I want to write about the journey I have been on recently, which in many ways is deeply personal and therefore rather scary to blog about. And yet it is having such a beautifully positive effect on my life, I feel like I need to share it.

It all began at the very end of last year. 2014 was a hellish year for us. It followed several difficult years we had already survived and seemed to push us beyond our limits in a way nothing else had ever done. And I was broken. I have touched on this previously, but a lot of it never actually made it onto the blog at all. Needless to say, it was a very dark period in our lives.

I was so caught up in simply surviving that I couldn’t even enjoy the publication of the book, despite knowing what a massive achievement it was. Most days I felt like I was living on an endless spin cycle, dizzy with the inability to ground myself as I desperately gave absolutely everything I had to the many, many responsibilities I had upon my shoulders.

When I finally did ask for help, and things became immeasurably more stressful as a result, I found myself balancing precariously on the edge of reason, unable to eat or sleep, and obsessing over things I couldn’t change. I was lost and I couldn’t see a way to find myself again…

Until I prayed.

It’s not that I haven’t prayed before, but instead of a hasty “please help me” prayer, I sat down and really opened my heart. Beaten by life itself, I took a moment and let out a heartfelt prayer:

“Okay… I’ve tried it my way, and it isn’t working. I don’t know anymore what I want, let alone what I should do. I’m ready for you to show me the way forward, wherever that takes me…”

It is a prayer that I have never dared to say, because by surrendering so completely there is the possibility that something could come along that I do not want to face. But it felt like I had nothing to lose. My way really wasn’t working, in fact it was positively damaging me, so it couldn’t get any worse. What I didn’t expect, of course, was for things to get a whole lot better, almost overnight!

Within moments of saying those words, I felt the tears I had held inside come pouring out. The release was incredible, and I felt a warmth and calm wash over me. Nothing really changed that day, the circumstances that had led me to such despair were still there, but something had shifted inside my heart. I had opened up to the idea of being guided and supported – for the first time in a long, long time I didn’t feel the almighty weight of trying to make sense of everything on my own.

Over the next few days I began writing a journal, reading books and blogs online, and simply allowing myself to feel what I needed to feel. And I began to feel that things would be okay. I didn’t have to feel alone, even when I was alone, and that helped me immensely. I knew I had some difficult times ahead (although I had no idea just how shaken up my life was about to become) but I would be okay because I didn’t have to face them alone. I’d always have a quiet space to return to in prayer.

This led me to choosing Surrender as my Word of the Year. It also heavily influenced my goals for 2015. And all of it was perfectly timed because a few days later my whole world turned upside down. I returned to work after a month off sick, to find out that changes to the organisation meant I was facing possible redundancy.

As the higher earner in our family, redundancy is quite a scary prospect, however my reaction was incredibly calm. It just made sense – I had prayed for direction and direction was what I was been given. It was making me close the door on an area of my life that I had poured my heart and soul into, which I would normally have fought against. But instead, I chose to surrender to it, trusting that the closing of this door was to free me up for the place I now needed to be.

Let me stop here for a moment to really emphasise this point… at the end of 2014 I was on the edge of despair, and yet just a few weeks later, when my entire life became ultimately more stressful thanks to redundancy and all that this entails, I was so much calmer than I had been in a long, long time. This, more than anything else, proved to me the power of prayer!

Things seemed to happen really quickly after that – we found a new house to rent, far closer to my parents, and I attended two interviews for new jobs. And I really, honestly felt like everything was being perfectly orchestrated to lead me into the place I needed to be.

But it wasn’t quite that simple. The house fell through, the job interviews were unsuccessful, and I find myself at the beginning of March with no job and a house full of boxes but no new home to move to. That stress level just cranked up another notch.

I feel exhausted from multiple journeys to and from our new home town, calls and emails chasing people regarding paperwork and payments, and multiple hospital visits thrown into the mix, just to make things extra interesting of course! And my faith began to waiver that little bit once more… until I made the time to sit and pray again.

Looking in my journal, I realised it had been more than a month since I had really made the time and space to sit and be with my thoughts. I had neglected to devote time to prayer and meditation, which in turn had a knock-on effect on my ability to cope with what was happening. That’s not to say I was super stressed again (far from it), but I began to question what it was all about. Until I prayed…

In the midst of my prayer asking for guidance and comfort, I felt a very distinct response as if someone were saying to me, “why do you think it isn’t working, just because it isn’t already sorted?” And I knew, right then, that my impatience was getting the better of me. Instead of trusting in the process, allowing myself to be guided even when I couldn’t see the way forward, I was trying to force things to happen in my own time – a sure way to stress myself out!

Patience isn’t a virtue I really possess. I want everything to be sorted now. It’s most certainly a big learning curve for me, this trusting process. And yet, it seems so easy when I remember to take the time out to simply sit in prayer and reflect upon how this makes me feel. I cram so much meaningless stuff into my day, and yet the thing that makes me feel the best so often gets left out. Why is that?

I don’t actually know the answer to that one, but I do know it is worth continuing to try and make it a priority in my day because when I do I feel so much better. My life is currently as crazy as it has ever been (crazier even) and yet I feel as if everything is going to be okay. And that is why prayer is becoming an important part of my life.

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I really want to write a quick note here to say thanks to the amazing team at Thrive Moms. It is through rewatching their Fall Retreat (which I initially wrote about here) that I began to pray in earnest. Whilst still not really knowing where I fit in when it comes to faith and religion, I do love getting their weekly newsletters and seeing the wonderful supportive work they do to help mums do more than simply survive motherhood (because, we all know, that some days that’s what it feels like!)