I have read that the purpose of prayer is to realize what is, just as it is, as God's will. Which is a hard fact to remember...or to accept...when we have been taught to pray for something...our perceived needs, in particular.
The prayer of "thank you" is ideal for just that purpose. I try to keep a simple thank you going in my head for whatever I'm seeing...I play Spider Solitaire and every time I win or lose, I shoot a "thank you." That's my "pray without ceasing" which I originally believed could only be done by hermits or recluses on mountain tops.
I was talking with a friend recently who was updating me on a situation she'd been dealing with. One she was less than delighted with but she was willing and did keep showing up and working within it...not resisting, not carping, doing her continuous thank you prayer. She finally declared herself finished, done, over it, and said, "Well, here's one where 'thank you' and gratitude didn't work."
I had to smile. She hadn't yet realized that she had been doing her thank you in order to get something...to get the situation to turn out the way she envisioned it rather than to see the situation as necessary for only God knows why. [I will be in that same place before the sun sets tomorrow, count on it. That's how we learn if we're doing it right...a little too far to the right, correct; a little too far to the left, correct; and again....]
It is in our willingness to accept a situation that our reasoning mind finds unacceptable that opens the window for our surrender to enter, bringing the peace of acceptance with it.
Thank You.
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