I cannot tell you how many times I have walked into the hair salon with a hat on my head, begging the stylist not to run and hide at the sight of my hair, This is sort of the same behavior as when I know my housekeeper is coming, and I stay up all night getting my house clean enough for her to clean it,

We might forget that God knows everything about us and try to play the same game with Him. We might avoid telling God about our true problems trying to pretty things up a bit before we pray.. It is that type of silly game that Lamott addresses in the Prelude to her book Help, Thanks, Wow:

“Prayer is taking a chance that against all {Lamott, pg. 5]  odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up.” Lamott, pgs. 4-5.

“Sometimes the first time we pray, we cry out in the deepest desperation, ‘God help me.’ This is a great prayer, as we are then at our absolutely most degraded and isolated, which means we are nice [Lamott, pg.3] and juicy with the consequences of our best thinking and are thus possibly teachable.

“Or you might shout at the top of your lungs or whisper into your sleeve, ‘I hate you, God.’ That is prayer, too, because it is real, it is truth, and maybe it is the first sincere thought you’ve had in months.[Lamott, pg.4] …

“It [Prayer] begins with stopping in our tracks, or with our backs against the wall, or when we are going under the waves, or when we are just so sick and tired of being psychically sick and tired that we surrender, or at least we finally stop running away and at long last walk or lurch or crawl toward something. Or maybe, miraculously, we just release our grip slightly,” …

“Prayer is talking to something or anything with which we seek union, even if we are bitter or insane or broken. (In fact, these are probably the best possible conditions under which to pray.) Prayer is taking a chance that against all {Lamott, pg. 5]  odds and past history, we are loved and chosen, and do not have to get it together before we show up. The opposite may be true: We may not be able to get it together until after we show up in such miserable shape…. Lamott, pgs. 4-5.

“So prayer is our sometimes real selves trying to communicate with the Real, with Truth, with the Light It is us reaching out to be heard, hoping to be found by a light and warmth in the world, instead of darkness and cold. Even mushrooms respond to light–I suppose they blink their mushroomy little eyes, like the rest of us.

“Light reveals us to ourselves, which is not always so great if you find yourself in a big disgusting mess, possibly of your own creation. But like sunflowers we turn toward the light, Light warms, and in most cases it draws us to itself. And in this light, we can see beyond shadow and illusion to something beyond our modest receptors, to what is beyond us, and deep inside, [Lamott, pg. 7]

Seeking God’s Light – In My Garden & In My Life