THERE’S A PRAYER

There’s a prayer I didn’t pray
that got answered
even as I was asking
WHY
WHAT FOR
HOW COME
in more fervently formal prayers
that made my knees hurt
                 my head throb
                 my heart cramp
                 my soul shrink
There’s a prayer I didn’t pray
that got answered
and I might pause and give thanks
if I notice
this un-prayed prayer
as it desperately tries notifying me

I don’t remember writing this poem or what was going on my life when I wrote it. It’s just like me asking you. What were you worried about five years ago? Can you remember what you were worried about 10 or 25 years ago about August 1? where were you worried about? 

Well. . .

There’s a prayer I didn’t pray.

And somehow, it got answered.

Not the prayer I prayed on my knees. Not the one I repeated over and over:

WHY?
WHAT FOR?
HOW COME?

Those prayers were exhausting.

They made my knees hurt, my head throb, my heart cramp, and sometimes my soul feel even smaller.

I wanted an explanation.

Instead, I got an answer I didn’t recognize as an answer.

A door closed.

A direction changed.

Something I desperately wanted didn’t happen.

Someone I thought I needed moved out of my life.

And somewhere in all of that, a prayer I never actually prayed was being answered.

Maybe the prayer was:

“Help me become who I need to be.”

Or:

“Give me what I really need, not just what I think I want.”

Or maybe simply:

“Help me notice.”

That may be the hardest prayer of all.

Because sometimes the answer doesn’t arrive with a trumpet blast or a burning bush.

Sometimes it quietly keeps tapping us on the shoulder while we’re too busy asking WHY to notice.

The poem says this un-prayed prayer is “desperately trying” to notify us.

I love that.

Maybe there are answers in our lives right now that we haven’t recognized because they don’t look like the answers we requested.

So this Friday, I’m trying something different.

Less WHY?

More WHAT AM I NOTICING?

Less demanding an explanation.

More paying attention.

Because perhaps somewhere in the middle of the prayer we keep praying…

there’s another prayer—

one we never thought to pray—

already being answered.

What answer might be trying to find you today—if you could quiet the questions long enough to notice?