do you remember when i was a child, how i would go
down by salt creek, and shout my prayers out loud to You?
do you remember how i would clutch my prayer hands so
tightly together so they ached afterwards?
and how i would confess ever single solitary sin i
could possibly think of (even the sin of killing a mosquito?)
to make sure i was all shiny and new before addressing You,
the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords,
the Holy God Almighty? (no wonder i was so intimidated)

and do you remember how i thought there was NO WAY
You could possibly hear me,
and distinguish the voice of some scrawny buck toothed child,
with all the millions of people in the world praying at the same time?
the more important people.
with more important concerns.
and definitely with less sin than i, the
mosquito murdering serial killer...

i figured if i shouted loudly enough,
if i pressed my hands tightly together enough,
if i confessed my sins fully enough,
this would somehow give me a better connection on the phone line to You.

and after i prayed i knew to say
"in jesus name, amen" because that was supposed to seal the deal.
and i knew not to ask for the same thing again and again because
that would show i didnt have the faith of even a mustard seed.

and when the answers didnt come,
i thought for sure it was because You were still mad at me because of that time
i asked You to show me you existed by allowing my long legs to do the splits
like all those cheerleaders ~ and we all know that counted as one of those totally selfish prayers you weren't supposed to verbalize.

it wasnt my parents who filled my head with all these crazy
misconceptions, and i wont even blame the church for how whacked
my thinking became in terms of You. i think i was just a kid with
anxiety and ocd and instead of organizing my clothes, i tried to organize
my religion.

it took years before i finally grew so exhausted with my
prayer rituals
enough to
give it up.

i still believe in prayer. just not a freaked out kind of prayer.
now when i do pray, it is more like an entire novel
condensed into a single word whispered from the pulse of my heart.

i know my love, not my fear, is the strongest and most authentic
kind of communication possible. and its much easier than shouting
down by the creek and feeling bad for killing the bug that just sucked
my blood.