Prayer Swap

I was in such a bad state

My body filled more with the toxicity of circumstance than with itself

I couldn’t find a way to fill my self with my stuff—

my light my hope my peace—and get the toxic stuff that had been forced upon me out

So I prayed.

Really prayed.

I prayed for anyone or anything to help me

I prayed to connect with something pure and healing and real

So I could be filled with light

Instead of so many shadows

Many of them not even belonging to me.

And I didn’t quite find an answer to my prayers

But in coming to terms with my own pain and in the midst of praying that I was still deserving of peace, still deserving of life, I heard another prayer

from far away

from a person also in pain

In a different war but a war just the same—

An invasion

A violation

of their own

that they were praying so fiercely to be free of.

And so I said, I hear your prayer

I’m not sure if you can hear me hearing your prayer but I’m here.

And I felt a connection happen

And I heard her voice:

You’ve answered my prayer?

And I said, well I’m also praying and I was listening so hard for an answer to my prayer that I somehow heard your prayer.

I’m afraid I don’t have any answers to your prayer because I’m waiting for an answer over here for my own. But I am here to hear your prayer.

I want peace, she said in tears.

I’ve been so abused for so long and the weight of coping has grown too heavy

I don’t think I can budge anymore

But I don’t want to die. I don’t want to abandon my life just because it’s not being respected or nourished by those around me who are blinded by their own furious need to survive but have mistaken so many others in their way when really it’s their own selves that are in their way.

I don’t want to be collateral damage but in these circumstances I can’t figure out how to escape.

And that’s why I’m praying. I pray for an escape and for this weight to be lifted so it doesn’t hurt so badly, so I can carry myself to a better place.

I hear your prayer. I am in a similar situation. But in a different kind of war. I also feel so heavy with pains that I absorbed from another who was unable to soothe them and now I also carry the burden of having no one to soothe them.

I feel so completely alone but unable to ask for support, because of being surrounded by these same sorts of furious people who imagine that I’m in their way and will punish me for it, but with the punishment of apathy.

I’m sick of being wounded by the wounded

who need to heal but imagine it’s me in the way of their healing.

I’m sick of being wounded in this world that is too busy buying and selling instead of caring.

I pray for this weight to be lifted, bc I fear it’s in too deep and wounding too deeply to be repaired.

I hear your prayer.

I am here for you in your prayer. Will you be here with mine?

Yes. I am here for you. I hold your prayer in my heart along with mine.

Can you stay with me for a bit?

Yes. Let’s stay with each other. In prayer that is not silent but heard.

And maybe together our prayers that have now been heard by each other can heal us both.

I don’t know who you are but I love you. And I know you deserve peace and love and a place called home where you feel at home.

And I feel the same, Dear Being. I also love you. And you do, without any doubt, deserve peace and love and safety and a home where these things flow like light into your heart and into your wounds to heal them.

Thank you.

The world is such a confusing place

It demands so much and yet lately it doesn’t seem to provide.

Yes that’s my experience as well.

And we spoke like this for a bit.

Comforting each other.

Our pains were still there but they were beginning to be warmed by hope.

I’ll meet you here tomorrow.

I am glad. You will hear me by my prayer.

And you will hear me by mine.

In peace and in love and in safety.

In peace and in love and in safety.

-JLK