I think praying is so hard.

Oftentimes my scattered brain can’t focus long enough to connect one mental sentence with the next and any visit to the chapel usually turns into a staring contest with the leaves on the trees outside. My greatest challenge is to fill my mind with quiet.

That’s why I write. In those moments when I can’t seem to settle down, turning the words in my head into letters on a page is the only way to capture them and pin them down, so I can examine and learn from them before they fly away.

Recognizing the challenges I face, I find comfort in quiet. I depend on the quiet. I cling to the quiet like it contains the answers to all my questions, the way towards a better future, and the salvation of my soul.

Throughout quarantine though, I got lazy. The noise of boredom disguised itself as the quiet I was familiar with - and I let it sweep me away. I got disconnected. I got comfortable. My stares out the window and long visits to the chapel slowly got shorter and shorter and eventually, disappeared altogether.

“I’m not doing anything,” I told myself. “I can’t focus; I can’t connect one word with the next. What does it matter? Why should I still go?”

So I stopped going.

Well. Weeks and months and life event after life event later - let me tell you that sitting in a chapel doing nothing is a lot better than sitting anywhere else doing nothing. It’s hard to explain but

Whatever He was doing while I was staring out the window doesn’t work the same when my quiet time is spent scrolling on the couch. Doesn’t work the same when my quiet time is spent sleeping through three different alarms. Doesn’t even work the same when my quiet time is spent productively, planning and dreaming and working. 

It’s not the same, because I haven’t given it to Him. 

Yes, He’s there when I’m scrolling, and sleeping, and planning -

But when He’s there there? In the presence of the Eucharist? How will anything ever compare? 

If we truly believe that God is who He says He is and is who we say we believe He is - He doesn’t need us to do remarkable things. Our inadequacy, uncertainty, and inability to find the right words does not make time spent with God worthless. Our inadequacy, uncertainty, and inability to find the right words is what makes time spent with him worthwhile in the first place. 

Our weakness is the whole point.

Every moment I sit here with Him, He works on me. I slip under the anesthesia of His presence and I let Him do what He needs to do. He is the doctor. The divine physician. The only thing he requires of me is that I remain still while under His care.

I’ve come back to sit and be healed. To be worked on. To stare out the window, while He heals me in ways I can’t understand.