I received an email the other day in response to a recent blog I had published. The person asked If I “miss talking to God” and do I miss “....sensing His presence or feeling heard by someone that big and loving? I don’t mean that as a way to say you should pray or do any good girl anything. I am just curious if you miss that part ever?”... “Is there something else that fills that gap for you?”
I’ve been asked this question a few times in different conversations and felt this was a good opportunity to share my thoughts.
I really appreciated the question, here was my response:
Yes, sometimes I do miss talking to God, or what I thought was this friendship/relationship with Jesus. I am not confirming or denying Jesus was real, but I think after thousands of years of translations, and hundreds of years of how the American church has defined God/Jesus, it started to feel unclear who God/Jesus is. After deep diving into the history of the church and Christianity, I thought maybe this 'being' I was praying/talking to, was made up- like an imaginary friend. And that was a hard realization and definitely felt like there was a gap.
Part of my recovery was learning to "re-frame and reclaim". I had to re-frame what prayer was/is to me, and reclaim it for what feels more aligned for my spiritual practice, as well as re-frame who it was I was speaking to in order for me to understand how I was to use prayer anymore.
I've heard prayer be defined as wishful thinking, which may be true; but I think there's something to be said about speaking things out whether it's to God, the Universe, into nothing; it can be a cathartic and helpful practice.
Prayer was something I did routinely and fiercely, but what I was taught about prayer and how prayer works might have been a little off. So what I needed was to re-frame it. Instead of prayer being something I have to do in order to stay in communion with God, or have to use it in order to ask for things or formulate my words to make sure God really understood where I was coming from; prayer is just talking. Prayer is getting the words, thoughts, hopes, wishes, desires, out of my head into whoever is listening. Now that can still sound depressing, because don't we want to know someone is listening? Sure. But I will never actually fully know if God, or Universe, or Source is real or is actually listening. That takes faith.
Taking away this NEED for an all-powerful God helped me connect to myself: my higher-self, my inner knowing, my intuitive self. Once I understood her voice (still learning it by the way) then my desire for depth with an outside source (like God or the Universe) felt more like a bonus and less obligatory or a lifeline.
