Help Thanks Wow: Three Essential Prayers

by Anne Lamott

Prayer is private, even when we pray with others. It is communication from the heart to that which surpasses understanding. Let’s say it is communication from one’s heart to God.

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.

We can say anything to God. It’s all prayer.

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.

There are no words for the broken hearts of people losing people, so I ask God, with me in tow, to respond to them with graciousness and encouragement enough for the day.

In prayer, I see the suffering bathed in light.

And imagination is from God. It is part of the way we understand the world.

But where do we even start on the daily walk of restoration and awakening? We start where we are. We find God in our human lives, and that includes the suffering.

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.

What’s the difference between you and God? God never thinks he’s you.

In many cases, breath is all you need. Breath is holy spirit. Breath is Life. It’s oxygen. Breath might get you a little rest. You must be so exhausted.

It is easy to thank God for life when things are going well.

And at some point, we cast our eyes to the beautiful skies, above all the crap we’re wallowing in, and we whisper, “Thank you.”

“Thanks” is a huge mind-shift, from thinking that God wants our happy chatter and a public demonstration and is deeply interested in our opinions of the people we hate, to feeling quiet gratitude, humbly and amazingly, without shame at having been so blessed.

You breathe in gratitude, and you breathe it out, too.

The movement of grace toward gratitude brings us from the package of self-obsessed madness to a spiritual awakening.

Wows come in all shapes and sizes, like people.

Love falls to earth, rises from the ground, pools around the afflicted. Love pulls people back to their feet. Bodies and souls are fed. Bones and lives heal. New blades of grass grow from charred soil. The sun rises.

the answer to your prayer is to remember that you’re not hungry for food. You’re hungry for peace of mind, for a memory. You’re not hungry for cocoa butter. You’re hungry for safety, for a moment when the net of life holds and there is an occasional sense of the world’s benevolent order.

The Amen is only as good as the attitude. If you are trying to finish up quickly so you can check your cell phone messages, you are missing the chance to spend quiet moments with the giver of life and the eternal, which means you may reap continued feelings of life racing along without you.

Quiet, deep breath after any prayer is another form of Amen.

Amazing things appear in our lives, almost out of nowhere—landscapes, seascapes, forgiveness—and they keep happening; so many vistas and so much healing to give thanks for. Even when we don’t cooperate, blessings return to our lives, even in the aftermath of tragedy.