ARCHIVE ARTICLE: Written in 2018
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If someone asked you how you get through your days, what keeps you grounded and gives you strength to keep going through your days no matter the circumstances – good or bad, how would you answer?
For me, it is prayer. It is my relationship with the One and only, our Heavenly Father. I find myself going to Him in prayer every day and throughout my day. In the good moments and through the bad moments. Prayer is a huge part of my life, but even after years of praying continuously, I still find myself a bit insecure about it and asking, am I doing this right? It wasn’t until recently when Porter and Shepherd were asking me questions about talking to God that I found myself digging deeper so I could easily teach them about prayer. Sure I could say you just talk to God by thanking God, asking Him to help you and guide you, but I want to help them and give them more, to open doors for them to have a real relationship with God. This doesn’t happen overnight. Like with any relationship it takes time, but unlike any other relationship they will forever be changed through this one. We can’t do it all for them, but we can lead them to the One that can do all things.
Prayer looks differently for everyone, but through the article I want to share with you all how I for years have used the Lord’s prayer to guide my own prayers. For years growing up in the church the Lord’s prayer was just words to me that I memorized and repeated at church or after sporting events with my teammates. My prayers have come a long way since then, just like my spiritual journey has.
I remember many things from my childhood, not everything, but many of the details. I remember the exact moment when I was a five-year-old child at vacation bible school feeling a tug at me to want to know more about God. He wasn’t just a character like Santa Clause that lived up in the sky to me. There was something during that week of vacation bible school that year that planted my need to know more. This was just the beginning. Now just like my prayer life, this journey has changed and come a long way, but one thing that has remained the same and true, is God.
I also remember the detail of proclaiming I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior on baptism Sunday as a five-year-old and falling down the steps in front of the entire church family to enter the water for baptism. I think it’s fitting that my spiritual journey, my relationship with God started with a fall. It was like I was getting a peak right off the bat that I will fall, but God would forever be right with me to get me back up.
So as the years passed and I was growing physically and spiritually the next memorable detailed moment in my journey was when I was thirteen years old and watching my big brother go through and live through his first heart surgery, an aortic valve replacement. I remember feeling completely confused while we all watched Sean feel confused by what the doctors were telling us was happening inside of his heart because he appeared so healthy. He was just seventeen years old and needed to have his heart worked on already. I think at any age this is scary, but imagine being a teenager that just learned to drive and having a tiny ounce of independence and now all of a sudden your world is turned upside down and halted by news that you need a new aortic valve in order to live. It was hard to watch and take in watching Sean live in this and it was hard for all of us to sit on the sidelines and watch him go through so much. But in this life moment, the details of prayer came to life for me. I learned to pray real deep prayers from a heart position full of confusion, frustration and fear. God met us all where we were and we were all over the place. I studied prayer as a thirteen year not because someone told me to, but because I had to. I dove into how God taught us to pray. I started with the Lord’s prayer. It wasn’t just words to me anymore. The words were alive and flowing within me and it all meant so much more as life and death got much more serious for all of us. This is when I knew that seed that was planted in me with that tug, when I was just five years old, wasn’t because of me but it was all God getting me ready for these exact moments He knew I was soon to walk through. I needed that tug at that time early on in my life and only God knew it. He was preparing me for what was coming.
Sean was sick and not many knew it because he was so strong and his faith even stronger. I remember watching him pray out loud. I remember watching him curl up in his bed reading the Bible. I remember hearing him through that thin dry wall that separated our rooms, praying for strength and for “thy will be done.” From those moments on, the Lord’s prayer has been my prayer guide and my outline for praying. The best advice I’ve gotten through the years, is to pray and to pray continuously. Not just when you need something, but all through the day to keep in step with the Holy Spirit that involves communicating with Him and more importantly, to listen. The best advice I will forever give to others is to pray. I think we make prayer harder than it is and if having a guide to help you pray and to teach your children how to pray is something that will help, here is The Lord’s prayer from Matthew 6:9-13 line by line how I try to simplify prayer and make it feel more like what it is, a conversation with our Lord and Savior.
“Our Father”
Right from the start in those first two words I am reminded that we are talking to Our Father. This puts things in perspective for me, we are all connected by our creator – “our Father,” the paternal authority for all of us. He is our teacher, our protector, our mentor, our disciplinarian and our Father. We are all connected by His love for us and we are all His children.
“Who art in heaven”
Growing up I remember thinking of heaven as a place above the clouds where God lives and where the people that pass away go to reside beyond the golden gates. But the more I learn and live, I know our Father is all around us. He’s everywhere and there is no limit to where He resides. The essence of our Father is all around us and within us. The boys have many questions about God, but this one about where God is located is probably the one that they ask the most. You can simplify it by giving them examples: He is in the wind, the sun, the stars, the mountains, the ocean and in them just to name a few. I want the boys to know God created all things and all people and what He created is where they will find Him, all around.
“Hallowed be thy name”
Hallowed meaning sacred, to honor something Holy. To honor Our Father who is in heaven, all around us, who created us all and everything that is. Giving our Father praise who deserves our all.
“Thy Kingdom come, they will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”
Recognizing that His plans for our lives will always be better than what we could ever plan for ourselves is truly believing that He is in control. “Thy will be done.” When Sean passed away from his second open heart surgery at age nineteen, I knew he believed this very strongly by the way he lived his life, but just days after his passing, we looked through his belongings and found a card on the inside of his wallet that read, “Relax, God is in charge.” It was such a comforting moment that I will never forget. An immediate sense of peace came over me like the wind passing through me. It was then and still is to this day something that my family clings to through our everyday cycles of grief. I feel an overwhelming amount of gratitude for God’s plan for our lives and I trust His plan will always be best, even if it hurts deeply.
“Give us this day”
Today and in this moment, give us this day. Not focused on tomorrow because we are not promised a tomorrow, but right now in this moment for the day God has given us.
“Our daily bread”
This sounds like a physical nourishment and it could mean both, but it is referring to spiritual nourishment. This is when I find myself asking for guidance, for assistance, for strength, and wisdom through the day that has been given to me. Not only to survive through the day given, but to thrive in order to fulfil how God wants me to do this day according to his plan, for Him. With the season that I am in right now serving Him could be through changing diapers, continuous feeding cycles, all the motherhood ministry moments that can easily leave us feeling unseen. God sees it all. He is in every moment with us and if that is where He has us that is where He will meet us. We get to serve God through all the beautiful messes as He brings us to them, and as He brings us there He builds our trust into understanding He is our strength that will carry us through.
“And Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us”
We are all imperfect and when we can acknowledge this I think it’s easier for us to ask for forgiveness for all the ways that we have fallen short. After acknowledging and confessing our wrongs God makes a way for us to want to try harder to do it, “on earth as it is in heaven.” And by asking for forgiveness from our Heavenly Father and believing He has forgiven all of us, this helps guide us to forgive the ones that have hurt us. Even when it is hard and it doesn’t make any sense, even to ourselves, forgiving others reveals in us God’s love to those that we are forgiving.
“And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil”
Asking God to guide us, keep us on track, focused on Him and His truth so we can stay clear of our wordly pitfalls that can be so tempting in the now, but will never fully satisfy us like only our Heavenly Father does. He is the only One that can deliver us from the evil things that we know to be wrong and in keeping our eyes on Him as we feel and see Him rescue us time and time again according to His plan.
“For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever.”
Full circle closing out prayer pointing it all back to our Creator, our Father, Our God, the beginning and the end. Giving praise to the One that keeps us all connected through His love and that binds us all with gratitude and appreciation for God forever.
“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
There is no right or wrong way to pray to our Heavenly Father. Just keep doing it, no matter how it sounds or looks. He knows our hearts and He just wants us to keep coming to Him. The connection and bond between you and God only gets stronger as you keep at it. Like all relationships, communication is key and keeping an open dialogue with God throughout your days, changes everything. The best way to learn how to pray, is to keep praying.
Now praying out loud sometimes trying to keep this guide in your lineup can all become too much, so try to clear your mind and just speak from your heart. I used to think I must have long beautiful perfectly worded prayers, but slowly with more and more prayers said and heard, I learned that God doesn’t want our perfectly worded prayers, He just wants us to come to Him and that can be through silence, with tears or with words. God wants and longs for a relationship with all of us. He loves us and created us for a purpose. The more we communicate with Him, trusting Him fully, the closer we become with Him. Prayer strengthens our faith and guides us to surrender to God’s plan for our lives. C.S Lewis said it best, “It doesn’t change God, it changes me.”
You are loved.
XX- Ashley
“I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God, it changes me.” C.S. Lewis
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.” Psalm 46.1
