I've thought a lot about prayer in my life. I often feel that I fall very short in my prayers, not because I don't want them to be sincere, but because I can't utter what I feel in my heart. This has happened for several reasons.
When I was a child I was severely abused. I had my head kicked in and my jaw broken and the teeth on that side knocked out. It healed on its own without medical attention, but it was painful and left me with a lot of fear.
I always wanted to attend church even as a little child, but only my brothers and sister were allowed to go. I think now that it was because there might have been too many questions about the missing teeth and bruises, or any of the other many signs of physical abuse going on. However, I loved hearing any stories my sister would tell me about what she learned in church.
She told me one time about a story of a child who was sick and worried. This child heard that Christ would hear her prayers and comfort her. One morning, after a very rough night her mother asked her if anything different had happened during the night. The child replied that she'd dreamed that the Lord had stayed with her and held her hand all night. The mother said that the child had her hand raised in the air all night, as though someone were holding it.
I decided I'd try it out. I went to sleep that night with my hand in the air, hoping that somehow God would see my hand and help me. As I fell asleep my hand came down. The next morning I knew that God had not seen my hand. Instead of making me lose my faith, I determined to do everything I could to be righteous enough so that someday he would see my hand and help me. I've been working at it ever since.
Later as a teenager of about 17, I knelt in prayer in a cold, dark basement room, my heart full of I didn't know what. I needed help in a desperate way. I'd been raped and beaten, but didn't know how to express what I was feeling. I needed God to see my hand and help me. I couldn't utter anything in that prayer and I felt ashamed that there were no words to speak. I had no words of sadness, or loss or faith or thanks. I just knelt there shivering in the dark.
As I grew weary with my own lack of speech, I got up from the floor, determined to live righteously enough that someday I'd have the right words that would draw me close enough to Christ so that I'd feel like I was doing right by Him.
There are still times when my heart wants so badly to pray but there are no words to utter. Sure, I can say a prayer of thanks and mean it with my whole heart, but there are still times when thanks are not enough. Expression escapes me.
I am comforted by the scripture 3 Nephi 13:8, "For your Father knoweth what things ye are in need of before ye ask him." I am comforted in the belief that my Father knows what's in my heart when I do not. He knows what I'm trying to say, when I don't. He hears what I truly cannot say, and when I can say it, it sounds just like, "Thank you for my life and my experiences, and all that you've let me learn and endure. I wouldn't have wanted it any other way. I came here to gain experience and I'm grateful you took me at my word."
In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.
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