Prayer Changes Me

I feel like I'm learning a lot about prayer these days.

Warning: I'm about to quote a secular television show... You have been warned...

I seem to have a hidden talent - or hidden curse that I can quote movies/plays/radio broadcasts/tv shows perfectly after seeing or hearing a dialogue MINIMAL times.

In an early episode of Dawson's Creek, Jen's grandmother is a church-going, "Bible-beating" woman. When her husband dies, Jen finds her grandmother at church praying and Jen comments on her grandmother's prayers, "What makes you think you can change God?"

"No, my dear. You have it backwards. Prayer changes me."

I've always liked that quote -- it was why I remember it so well. But I feel like I'm really experiencing the meaning for the first time in my life.
I have been hurt by a sister in Christ. I have gone through phases of being so angry, trying to brush her off and forget she exists, telling God I don't want to pray for her because I'm angry with her and hurt by her, composing all kinds of letters in my head from humbly trying to rebuild things to strong-worded convicting words about how her actions did not emulate the love of Christ... but in every phase, I keep coming back to prayer - to talking through the situation with God.

I tell God how angry I am by her actions; I tell God how hurt I am by her silence; I tell God how I don't know what to do to repair things; I confide in the Lord like a real friend and I tell Him I am disappointed in my human friend, this woman, my "sister", His child... then, time after time, I find myself sincerely praying for her. Praying for her journey, praying for her heart, praying for her relationship with God, her husband, her family, her children; her friends; her life, her joy, her growth and her testimony.Prayer really does change my heart. I am learning that I can count on Jesus even when I cannot count on his followers. God is God regardless of Christians -- this is a big lesson for me, but it is a comforting lesson as well.

I am not surprised or heartbroken when I am hurt by those who do not know the Lord. They do not believe in the same guidelines or power and therefore, they cannot be held to Christ-like standards... but hurt from Christ-followers is a very different pain. I'd call it a confusing, mind-numbing, bitter, choking kind of pain that leaves me trying to pin-point where I hurt, because I hurt so many different places. Have you ever had that kind of pain? Its such a confusing pain... Its such an intense pain...

No matter how His children act, God is God; God is good; God is faithful; God is loving; God is powerful; God is listening!

Prayer is comforting; Prayer brings peace; Prayer calms my anxious heart; Prayer soothes the man-made pain; Prayer softens my frustrations; Prayer changes me.