I overheard my 6 year old niece Tessa recently give the most beautiful prayer. She said, “Heavenly Father, please help me to stop sucking my thumb, to learn how to read better this summer, and to stop throwing fits.” I love the honesty of her prayer and the sincerity.
I’ve been thinking a lot about prayer lately. I had a friend give me a book from another faith that talked about being honest to God in prayer. I’ve been really trying to be more honest in my praying.
One of the things that I love about Mormonism is the encouragement to have a personal relationship with God. It is this relationship, in fact, that has kept me a Latter-day Saint. While I see much truth elsewhere, this faith has held the boundaries within which I find God most truly.
My adventures with honesty and prayer have led me to talk to God about exactly how I feel about him at the time, even when I’m angry with him. Being honest about how I am feeling has begun to make me feel even closer to him. This feeling reminds me that he has led me through all emotions, to all reconciliations, towards all hope.
Recently I had a day when I really needed him. I told him exactly how I felt until I sensed that I needed to listen. Then I didn’t hear anything; I just felt that I should be so still. As I knelt, simply breathing, he poured stillness inside of me. The feeling did not include answers or tell me how to act. It was just a sense of being filled with perfect stillness.
I don’t know why bad things happen to good people or how to calm the fears and anxieties that drive the world’s neuroses and violence, or even how to solve all my own problems. Yet I do know that I have this power to talk to God and to remember his Son and to come close again to him.
Something I have been thinking a lot about too-thanks for sharing. As I have had many spiritual discussions with Tessa lately and see her actions, I think she is ahead of spiritually in many ways.