Why Do We Pray?


Why do you pray?

A loved one is sick for a week, and it worries you. What do you feel?

Your spouse or your dear heart has left you. You are heartbroken. How do you feel?

You need money to buy food or pay for your child's tuition fees. And you don't know how to fill that hunger or send your child to school. What do you feel?

You are ill. You are in a hospital bed diagnosed with a rare disease and you don't know if you can be treated. How do you feel?

You are turning 40 soon and still single. You've been wanting to get married but prince charming is nowhere to be found. You feel desperate and would marry anyone even without love. What do you feel?

Your mother is in the ICU, comatose. Any time soon, she'll be gone. You find yourself inside the chapel, praying, crying. What do you pray? How are you feeling?

Your best friend just betrayed you. It is so much painful as if your heart wanted to burst from anger. How do you feel?

You did something wrong. Perhaps, you stole some money; or you told a lie that caused your fellow employee fired from his work. You feel that guilt and you want to be forgiven. What is that that you feel in your heart?

You're young, a teenage young man. You've been sexually abused. No one knows because you cannot speak about it, not even to your best friend, especially not to your parents. It wasn't your fault why it happened, yet you are feeling guilty, and you want to blame yourself. You want to end your life. It wasn't your fault, but the pain that you feel is so intense. You pray. And what do you pray for? Justice? No, you don't exactly know what you're praying for. You just pray.

Without a doubt, we cry when a loved one passes away. Perhaps, your mom or dad, brother or sister, child or grandparent just left you a few months ago. You miss them. And during that burial, there is something that you feel in your heart as if your connection with your loved one has been cut off for good. No signal.  It is a permanent separation.  You will never see your loved one again. On your way home, you contemplate on what you should have done but did not. Your feel regret that it pokes your heart painfully.

There's something common among these emotions. All of them have a feeling of pain. And because of that pain, you start to pray. You pray for survival, reconciliation, forgiveness, compassion, justice, love. So, why do you pray.

We pray because we are hurting. And we hope that through prayer, we will feel peace, life, and love again.

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