my imperfect offering

We say grace every night before dinner in our house. Kid B and Kid A argue about who gets to lead, and usually end up saying it in unison. It’s the same grace I said as a child, though A has added a closing “peace” to it, a brushing of hands before the breaking of bread that I really, really love. We say our prayers before bedtime, and it’s standard, too. “Now I lay me down to sleep,” though there is no mention of dying before waking. We ask God to bless our family, immediate and extended, and at the end there’s a place for special intentions.

I like praying. There is a comfort to it. I love praying the Rosary, precisely because of how meditative it is, how cleansing. But I would be lying if I didn’t say that the act of praying, at least in some of its iterations, makes me very uncomfortable.

When we were in limbo with Kid C, waiting those two weeks between the Newborn Screen flag and the sweat test, I prayed a lot. A lot. I prayed for strength, and clarity. For faith, and trust. I prayed that no matter what the outcome was, that I could be the mother that my son would need, my sons, the partner my husband would need. I couldn’t pray for his test to come back negative.

I went around in circles about that last bit with a few friends who are ordained. I believe in asking for it all, one of them said. Lay out your intentions, put them out there for the universe to hear. I get that, I appreciate it. But as I agonized, those long days and longer nights, when the dark makes everything so much scarier, I still couldn’t get there. I couldn’t ask for something because I couldn’t get my head around a God that, for lack of a better word, micromanages in that way.

See, I have cried tears of joy with friends who have come through illness and strife and emerged on the other side healthy and joy. I have cried tears of sorrow with others who have lost partners or children. They are all, to a person, good and decent people and rather than pray to a God that favors one over the other, I choose to pray to a God who listens, and sits, and waits with me, with them. This God is that little flicker of light that breaks up the darkness. A God that is as much the question itself as the answer.

It’s a really personal thing, prayer, what you put into it, what you get out of it, even in community. Is it okay to ask for things, to be specific? Is it a sign of lesser favor, if those prayers go unanswered or is it just that we lack the perspective to see that they do? And now I am rambling, searching for some way to tie this up neatly but I’m not sure you can. Do you pray? What do you pray for?