Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

by Anne Lamott

Welcome to the monkey house. This is a hard planet, and we’re a vulnerable species. And all I can do is pray: Help.

We don’t have to figure out how this all works—“Figure it out” is not a good slogan. It’s enough to know it does.

And besides, I was the helper. I was the go-to girl for everyone in my family. And ours wasn’t a family who would ever, under almost any circumstances, ask others for help.

And as it turns out, if one person is praying for you, buckle up. Things can happen.

Side by side with all that, we will witness transformation, people finding out who they were born to be, before their parents pretzelized them into high achievers and addicts and charming, wired robots.

three things I cannot change are the past, the truth, and you.

Most good, honest prayers remind me that I am not in charge, that I cannot fix anything, and that I open myself to being helped by something, some force, some friends, some something.

These prayers say, “Dear Some Something, I don’t know what I’m doing. I can’t see where I’m going. I’m getting more lost, more afraid, more clenched. Help.”

You breathe in gratitude, and you breathe it out, too. Once you learn how to do that, then you can bear someone who is unbearable.