Getting Ready to Close the Door Again

Jesus said, “When you pray, go into your room, close the door, and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

So it’s felt a little weird to “open the door” on my prayer life here on my blog for the last month. The last thing I wanted to do was say, “Look at me, look how much willpower I have and how awesome I am.” Because I don’t and I’m not and it’s not about me.

But here’s the thing. Some things in life, as worthwhile as they may be, are extremely difficult to do without support. That’s why we have NaNoWriMo and twelve-step groups.

I remember the group that first got me into this Centering Prayer thing. I remember how helpful it was to have Sister Shirley telling me it was normal to find it both simple and hard. And I remember how encouraging it was to go around the circle every week and hear everyone tell their stories, good and bad.

Like falling asleep while praying in the bath and waking up to ice cold water.

Or having to learn to gently ignore painful old memories that surfaced during prayer.

Or, miraculously, a new awareness that life is not an emergency, that breathing is still possible in times of great stress.

I hope this month of my sharing prayer has blessed you in the same way. I hope it’s helped in some small way to have one more presence out there, struggling and encouraging.

And I thank you for keeping me accountable this month. I hope when I close the door, I’ll have even more motivation to pray behind it.

Today’s 15 minutes of prayer: In the conference room. Learning, slowly, to watch my thoughts go by like clouds…

I’m spending this month blogging with other Faith and Inspiration writers at The Nester’s 31 Days challenge. Here’s the complete list of my posts for the month so far.