Prayer

So, I am reading this book about prayer.  I bought it months ago, just after my brother died. And I have just now picked it up and started to read. It was inspired really. All those months ago I did not know that I would need that book in my life right now. But I do. And it has been good for me, for so many reasons. And these are a couple of them.

I have been feeling a little off lately. Just not like myself. And I have been trying to figure out why. What is it in my life that is making me feel this way? And so I thought and thought about it for a couple weeks. And in the midst of all that thinking I began to read that book. Not because I wanted to, but because it was next in my stack of books to be read. Heavenly Father can be so sneaky sometimes. And the two together, the thinking and the book, kind of helped it all come into perspective for me. And all the sudden I knew just exactly why I felt the way I did. It wasn't just one thing, but a couple things together were weighing on my mind more than usual.

So I began to pray about those things. I prayed the way the book was teaching me to pray. And those prayers were so much better than the old prayers that I began to feel different. I told Heavenly Father how I felt. I told him that I needed help with one of my children. I told him how much I loved this child. How much I wanted to help him. I told him that I wanted to be the kind of mother my child needed. That I needed to find more patience. That I needed to love him the way that I knew Heavenly Father loved him. And during that prayer I paused and listened. And the answers came. Not just the maybe kind, but the real kind. And I knew exactly what I needed to do to be better. To be the kind of mother I need to be for this child. It was awesome.

The other thing on my mind is a work in progress. I knew it would be before I took it to my Heavenly Father. I am having a hard time dealing with my brother's death. It's not surprising, I think everyone has a hard time with grief. But this grief that I feel is so mixed up with the guilt that I feel that I am not sure which is which anymore. And it seems that the more time that passes the worse that guilt feels. I wish I would have done this and been there and said that and not said this. And on and on. I do not blame myself for what he did, but I do think that I could have done more to make him better while I had the chance. And I didn't. And that is a hard thing to swallow. And I do not think that there is an easy answer. I think it is a process that I will have to go through for a long time. But getting it off my chest, telling my Heavenly Father how I feel, is liberating. I am not even sure that I knew how I felt until I prayed about it. But I do know now. And I think that is a good step.

And there it is. Those two little big things that together have made me feel a little too guilty to feel like myself. But being able to pray about it, knowing that someone is listening and waiting and wanting to give me answers, makes it all seem bearable. It makes me feel like I am allowing these difficult things in my life to mold me into the person I want to be. Molding me into someone who is full of patience and compassion and empathy and love. And that is what I want, to be all those things. And sometimes it takes hard things to get you there. And I am OK with that.

Unrelated to this post, but I had to share this loveliness. This is my favorite quote from the book so far:
"Very often the Almighty answers people's prayers- the prayers of the lonely, the downtrodden, the hungry, the bitter- through other people, through those sensitive souls who open themselves to inspiration and are willing to be inconvenienced."
I love this idea. That sometimes in order to be an instrument we have to be willing to be inconvenienced. So true. But I have never thought of it that way. Have you?