When I pray these days, I ask for the strength to take up my place in the world. I ask for help acting with compassion, with bravery, with humility, with love. Sometimes it feels
frivolous to ask God for help with my own actions. Shouldn’t I be praying for things outside of my control? Shouldn’t I be asking God to move mountains for me, to ease my suffering, to remove obstacles from my path?
This is how I was taught to pray—kneeling at the foot of an altar, asking for interference, and recognizing that someone bigger and more powerful than myself calls the shots. In moments of immense pain, I turned to God and asked for things to change. When they did, my faith strengthened. When they didn’t, I wavered. My relationship with divinity began to feel circumstantial and almost transactional in nature. My prayers were currency and I wasn’t sure that they had any real value. Now, I don’t pray for change; I pray for surrender.
These days I call to God in the same breath that I call to myself. Praying gives me the time to pause and make sure my next step will help me show up in the world the way I want. My prayers have value because they strengthen my own resolve. Because they give me the strength to let go of the desire to control the outcome and walk my path well—whatever it may look like.