Recently, I participated in a prayer group, and one of the first orders of business was that of adding names to a prayer list. We had several categories to add names of people who needed prayer, and when every category was mentioned, I thought to myself, “I need to add my own name. I need prayers, too.” In her book Help, Thanks, Wow, Anne Lamott talks about ways that we need to pray for ourselves:

“We can pray for things (‘Lord, won’t you buy me a Mercedes-Benz).

“We can pray for people (‘Please heal Martin’s cancer.’ ‘

We may pray for ourselves:

“‘Please help me not be such an asshole’

We may pray for things that would destroy us… ‘More tears are shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones.’ We can pray or. shot at having a life in which we are present and awake and paying attention and being kind to ourselves.

We can pray, ‘Hello? Is there anyone there?’

We can pray, “Am I too far gone, or can you help me get out of my isolated self-obsession?’

We can say anything to God, It’s all prayer.