I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

Prayer again. 

I'm going to try and learn to do it by sheer dint of determination. My Dear Roommate suggested praying together in the mornings before work, and I jumped. I want to also start reading at night before I go to bed. It's just the in-between-times that I struggle with.

Dad has been sweet - He's given me music (which is a form of prayer, as long as it doesn't become background noise). The song "Oh How He Loves" has been a kind of anthem for me lately (and a lot of other people, it would seem). And this morning, first thing on Pandora was Relient K (I heart Relient K... could explain, but I'll save it for later):

Cause I’ve been housing all this doubt and insecurity,

and I’ve been locked inside this house - all the while You hold the key.
And I’ve been dying to get out and that might be the death of me.
And even though there’s no way of knowing where to go, I promise I’m going because
I gotta get outta here.
Cause I’m afraid that this complacency is something I can’t shake.
I gotta get outta here, 
And I’m begging You, I’m begging You, I’m begging You to be my escape.

That's the feeling I've had for weeks - I'm stuck inside myself, and there's nothing there but desert sand, a bound-less sea of nothing. I haven't cried in ages, and the image that comes to mind is a heart of stone. I've been afraid - afraid that this complacency is something I can't shake. And fear (wait, this is sounding familiar) has kept me from asking the One Who can help. *Sigh... we're slow learners, aren't we?

Kahlil Gibran, On Prayer:

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

I cannot teach you how to pray in words.

But you who are born of the mountains and the forests and the seas can find their prayer in your heart,
And if you but listen in the stillness of the night you shall hear them saying in silence,
"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.
It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.
We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:
Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."