I went to church yesterday evening. Gist of the sermon was about prayer. Honestly, I haven't been praying much (if you define prayer as talking to God mentally/verbally). Most of my prayers have been really short and precise, like say, "Dear God thank you for the sunny weather today" or "God please help Seth have a speedy recovery" or "God I can't sleep, I need your peace" or "Thank you for the food amen". I don't like dwelling on prayer itself, and I have no idea how people can pray for hours. I can't even talk to myself for 5 minutes.

Yeh its rather frustrating cause I feel like an outsider most of the time because I just don't know how to pray verbally. I don't like talking about my feelings. I do, but they never come out right. Most of the time I blog them down because it's the easiest way to express myself.
I like writing prayers down, like Galvin shared during discussion time. Sometimes when Matt asks us to pray, all I feel like doing is taking out my pen and writing it all out. But then there would be this voice in my head telling me that I have to 'behave' during prayer and 'fidgeting' would not only be a distraction to others around me but disrespectful to God. Weren't we all taught to be still and zen-like during prayer? I know I've been conditioned since I was a kid to close my eyes and bow my head during prayer. But those prayers never last long before something else enters my mind.

Last night's discussion was reassuring. Prayers are ultimately your way of communicating with God. Something that's personal and sacred. There's no fixed way of praying, only a common way. So there's the thing between praying by ritual vs. spontaneous prayers. I'm not saying that one's more sincere than the other, because it would be rather stupid of me to judge. My most sincere prayers are rarely those uttered out loud. The ones that are most close to heart are prayers I type/write. Does the form make my prayers any less worthy? I say not.

Anyway. I came across this little section of my Bible next to the verses that were read, a little POV message contributed by other Christian women about certain topics. I like reading them because well, it helps me understand things better.
The tiny section read:

Sometimes you're hurting so much that you don't even know what to pray or how to pray. Sometimes a situation feels so painful that you're at a total loss for words. So you get on your knees, and all you can do is cry. You know what? That's a prayer to God. These verses promise that the Holy Spirit knows what's going on in your life, and he'll intercede for you with God. When you have no words to pray, let the Spirit turn your sighs into prayers to God. He promises to hear.

 It was just what I needed.

So I've heard that there's some facebook thread going round, I thank God's. My facebook's not the most cooperative at the moment, so for now,

I thank God for hearing my prayers. All of them.