Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

by Anne Lamott

Prayer means that, in some unique way, we believe we’re invited

into a relationship with someone who hears us when we speak in silence.

Prayer is taking a chance that against all odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.

God can handle honesty, and prayer begins an honest conversation.

If I were going to begin practicing the presence of God for the first time today, it would help to begin by admitting the three most terrible truths of our existence: that we are so ruined, and so loved, and in charge of so little.

Hi, God. I am just a mess. It is all hopeless. What else is new? I would be sick of me, if I were You, but miraculously You are not. I know I have no control over other people’s lives, and I hate this. Yet I believe that if I accept this and surrender, You will meet me wherever I am.

It’s like the old riddle: What’s the difference between you and God? God never thinks he’s you.

You can go from monkey island, with endless chatter, umbrage, and poop-throwing, to what is happening right in front of me. God, what a concept. It means I stop trying to figure it out, because trying to figure it out is exhausting and crazy-making.

Gratitude begins in our hearts and then dovetails into behavior.

We do the footwork, which comes down mostly to paying attention and trying not to be such a jerk.

prayed: “Help me not be such an ass.” (This is actually the fourth great prayer, which perhaps we will address at another time.)

When we are stunned to the place beyond words, we’re finally starting to get somewhere.

God keeps giving, forgiving, and inviting us back. My friend Tom says this is a scandal, and that God has no common sense.

If we stay where we are, where we’re stuck, where we’re comfortable and safe, we die there. We become like mushrooms, living in the dark, with poop up to our chins. If you want to know only what you already know, you’re dying. You’re saying: Leave me alone; I don’t mind this little rathole. It’s warm and dry. Really, it’s fine.

C. S. Lewis wrote: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”