A Cement Heart and A Loss For Words

Can you pray without words? On vacation I found myself at a loss for words. This is a strange event for me to be sure. Usually I’m overstocked on words.
I have a confession to make. I didn’t want to pray and when I tried anyway, I felt like no one was listening. I felt alone and disconnected.
I didn’t seem to be able to “pray through” as we used to call it. In case you don’t know what that means, it refers to praying when you feel like no one’s listening and nothing is happening. Just keep praying. Pray through that cement-heart feeling until you get what you want from God. I’m a big believer in praying through. If I only prayed when I felt like it, I wouldn’t pray much. It’s praying when you can’t feel God hearing you but your faith tells you that He’s there anyway.
Often that cement-heart feeling is the prologue to something great just around the bend in your life. It’s the enemy trying to knock us off course by disarming you of your biggest weapon, communication with the Commander of your soul.
So I was having a hard time praying through and I felt worn out with the trying. Carrying a cement heart around long enough is tiring. My heart was heavy and yes, it was a little bit hard. I’ll explain that later because I did finally pray through and figure it out.
Just wondering, have you ever just gotten sick and tired of praying to a God you think may be on a coffee break? Do you ever just throw up your hands and say, “Forget this.”? Maybe it’s just me.
But that’s what I did. And I grabbed my camera and just took pictures of everything that seemed interesting. I stopped searching for God. That is probably a bad thing to admit, but true nonetheless. Forget it. I’m on vacation, I have a cement heart. I’m going to just take some pictures and pretend.
Because if you don’t pray through; you have to pretend. Pretend you’re ok. Pretend you are prayed through and peaceful. Pretend there’s nothing on your cement heart. Pretend the stuff that other people might worry about is not worrisome to you. Pretend that you have exceptional coping skills and it’s all good.
Pretend you don’t have a cement heart.
So I took pictures of everything and pretended. Turns out, you can pray without words.
Let me insert a warning here and tell you that it’s possible to fool yourself into thinking that you are in some kind of existential relationship with God that doesn’t require formal prayer. That’s crap. You and I need prayer. You can’t have a relationship with anyone based on acknowledging they exist and you respect them but never talking to them. There is no relationship without the vulnerability of truth that comes from talking. So if you are in one of those relationships with God, one of those “we understand each other” things, please don’t use this post as proof that it’s good. That’s not what I’m saying.
Back to prayer without words.
I gave up on the words being frustrated with my cement heart and moved into heart prayer. I took a deep breath and told God that I was out of words and that I needed to rest my cement heart. He said that was ok, He’d stay on the line.
And I prayed without words, and He answered the same way.
Oh, as for the cement heart? Better. Some of the outer edges have been chiseled away. The praying? Also better. Like exercise, I have to get back at it and keep it up to stay in the flow.
The lesson? Like my girl Margie keeps saying, just be still. Be quiet. Be soothed.
And know.

Jeremiah 29:12
Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.