Earlier in my blogging history, I wrote a blog post called My Fear of Prayer. In that post, I talked about just that: how I was afraid to pray. I was more worried about what people thought of me praying out loud than what God thought of me. I talked about how I felt inexperienced and I never knew what to say. Today, I wanted to talk about some things that have helped me to grow in that!
First of all, just realizing that it doesn't matter what other people think helps. Before I start, I just ask myself "Who am I praying to?" I'm praying to God. So if I'm talking to God, why do I care what other people think? His opinion is the only opinion that really matters, and I already know how He feels.
Secondly, I started praying out loud in my private time. It made me a little bit more comfortable with the idea of actually hearing my voice out loud when I'm praying. Earlier in my life, I really never had to (and never wanted to) pray out loud, and that is really what made me so insecure about it. Lack of practice. Praying out loud on my own helped me to get started.
But what really has helped me most in this past year is a prayer partner. Every week, during my Campus Life leadership meeting, I meet with my prayer partner, where we each list a few things to pray for each other, and then we pray together. That is what's helped me grow the most! Praying with someone else, and always having something new to pray about, has made a big deal for me. While I'm still not on the level of comfort I'd like to be at, I can honestly say that God has helped me to become so much better in this area!
At first, it was really uncomfortable. It took a lot of stretching of my comfort zone to make me be okay with it. Stretching is not fun. But the results make it all worth it. I'm so thankful to God for helping me to learn how to pray and not worry so much about how spiritual I sound, but just to focus on who He is and all the works He has done.
This has been my journey this past year. And it's so cool to be able to see something I wrote a long time ago and see how much I've grown since then! That's one of my favorite things about writing, is to be able to look back and see how much I've changed. It's really cool, and I am so blessed and thankful for God giving me the idea almost two years ago. I pray that he would help me to continue with this (and be more regular!), because seeing how much he's helped me grow already helps me trust Him even more that he'll help me grow in the future.