Prayer

I'm one week off Totus Tuus and a week from going back to school to begin the year that finishes off my education. Hoo-rah, I am so ready to have one more blessed and splendid year at the beautiful Abbey and then get scared out of mind to live the rest of my life as a responsible adult. Sounds fun! There are always little anxieties here in there throughout life - big and small, important, self-inflicted, or really stupid and pointless. Anxieties all the same. Something brings us back though, back to our center, back to reality - I'm not talking about what society thinks is reality because thats a bunch of ...well, you know. I digress...But being a responsible adult, buying a car, paying bills and loans sounds frightening at times, so does writing a thesis. These are just some things I can become anxious about and of course they need some attention and hard work when the time is right but it's the same with everything. My prayer life has actually been giving me some anxiety. You'd think Totus Tuus's structured prayer schedule would leave me set for life but actually that is quite a mistake. I had a schedule around my prayer schedule where my prayer fit in like a piece of the puzzle (to stretch this analogy further - no one likes a puzzle with missing pieces so the prayer was essential). Now that I'm free from my 7am-10pm daily schedule (no my friends that is not an exaggeration) I've also found it extremely easy to go a total day without prayer - I even forget to say Grace before meals a lot. 

Last semester my FOCUS discipler tried to gently beat into me the importance of structure in my life so that I made absolute sure I had time for prayer every day. I respectfully fought her on this (Sorry Sarah.) but now having been forced out of necessity to experience a very structured prayer schedule I see the beauty of it and miss it quite a lot. I'm excited to go back to the Abbey and structure my life again. 

I can't believe I just said that. I hate structure - actually at times I've resented it. I'm not the adventurous and spontaneous type that might suddenly decide to get lost in the wilderness (that sounds kind of manly to me actually) but I do like to do what I want, when I want and structure cramps my style. (I'm also very intrigued by the adventure of a thesis as painful as it sounds and of life after graduation despite how scary it may seem.)

Heres the deal though - Prayer is necessary. Not just in Totus Tuus. I've lived my entire life developing and re-developing a prayer life. The Lord has proven to me time and time again the importance of prayer and His desire for my time with Him. Truth be told all summer I was seeking that proof again. I prayed a lot and considered it necessary. I knew ministry is impossible without God's grace. However, prayer is not a magic trick that just gives you the strength to get through anything - its life with the Lord. Its time spent with the one who loves and knows you best, to worship and honor and love him and to receive from him the graces and love we require as His creation. That's what kept me in prayer all summer. And thats what keeps me yearning for it in such a new way now. I don't yearn for time with the Lord because I know he will make me feel wonderful inside. I actually yearn for Him because prayer is necessary. I have no choice but to yearn for the Lord. 

That is such a strange concept for me to grasp. Growing up I've learned that there are moments of consolation in prayer and moments of dryness and how true that is but despite that knowledge I still didn't/don't want to pray when I didn't/don't feel like praying. Now realizing that I have this quiet, innate yearning deep within me to be with my Lord even if I don't "want" to I'm starting to possibly grasp just what this whole relationship with Christ is about. 

We were made for Him. Absolutely, one hundred percent, no "ifs" "ands" or "buts" - we were made for Him and Him alone. He LOVES us. Absolutely, one hundred percent, no conditions. He desires us, yearns for us. Thing is He doesn't need us. He does not require us but he loves us, he created us simply to love us and to share in a beautiful relationship with us of perfect love. Sorry to break it to you folks but we're fallen and so our relationship with God isn't so perfect. God doesn't stop there though He seeks us and loves us constantly with his perfect love - standing there with open arms, thirsting for us, for our love. He desires to give us our eternal reward so that we may be in that perfect relationship with him that he created us for in Heaven. Prayer is essential to our love story with our Lord. 

Prayer is time to give to our God what is due. To adore and love him and to allow the one who knows us best, our creator, our GOD to take over our lives and lead us in love to Love. 

This afternoon I volunteered to take a friends Adoration hour at my home parish. As I began to journal a little  - one of my favorite forms of prayer (perfect for those with ADD!) - I realized how many things I was anxious about. Some minor, some important, some self-inflicted and silly. But I poured them in complete openness and honesty before the Lord, explaining to Him everything. Through journaling I came to contemplate solutions to my anxieties but in the end each one came down to just resting in the Lord. Every time I turn to the Lord in complete openness and honesty He snaps me, very gently, back to reality. He reminds me without sending me a voice or even a solution a lot of the time that He has a plan and He is constantly loving me and He is taking care of me. Without my time in prayer today I might have manufactured some grand scheme to some of my "problems" and taken the weak and frazzled reigns on my life but the Lord stood there with open arms, ready to love me and calm me down just like always. It's moments like those in prayer that I remember just how necessary God in my life is and giving Him my life requires time with Him in prayer.