The past four days of my life were just spent in the metal confines of a ship floating in the ocean. My older brother would scoff at this since he is out to sea for eight months. I am definitely relieved to be off the ship for a weekend but it was nice to spend hours in bed on the ship, reading and napping while the ship rocks back and forth, up and down, my stomach sinking and twisting. I rarely check the page number on my book because I have nowhere to go and nothing else to steal my time. I pray and I cry often. The two things have recently come to mean more and more the same thing to me. When I pray, I inevitably end up crying because I feel how much I need God in my heart and God shows me how much those around me need him. I wasn't suprised to find out in one of the books that I was reading that praying in the Bible can be traced back to people who "called on God" in the Old Testament. This can be traced back all the way to Genesis. It could also be translated to "cry out to God". I have known for a while that words in praying didn't necessarily mean anything but what mattered was what my heart was saying. I still use words sometimes when I pray but I have come more and more to just close my eyes and listen to my own heart and hear what its saying. It usually complains a lot and wants me to desire after other things, mostly relationships with girls and figuring out ways to bring more glory to myself by being funny or clever. Then comes the hard part when I begin trying to focus on God and what He is trying to say. I just close my eyes and imagine Him there, I picture what He did for me through Jesus and let that seep in. I think about the Holy Spirit and what he wants to do in me. That is when my heart cries out and I just want to stop praying. I become disgusted and bored in a way because I know He wants my hear to confront these things and replace them. I stay focused on God anyway most of the time and hold myself in His light. It hurts to do this because when I begin thinking about what God did and the reality of the spiritual world around me (myself and others getting attacked) , it takes me out of my confortable world I have been living in. Eventually though I cry out to God and tell him that I don't care that it hurts and I don't care that I screwed up. I want him to accept and use me anyway. This is the same emotional plane of the song "Worlds Apart" by Jars of Clay. Take my world apart. Replace it with You. That's all. Nothing else matters. His light begins to seep in and it feels so sweet. To lift your heart up to God and have him bring his own heart down to you naturally brings tears to your eyes. It is only at this point when I begin praying for other people. I don't have to tell myself to do it really because God's heart naturally wants to and so I want to. I pray for other people in words but also in images. If someone needs peace, I might just begin picturing God's peace as a blanket and then I watch as it wraps around the person and then as I ask God to draw them close to Himself, I imagine him taking the snugly wrapped person into his arms and holding them more lovingly than ever. I think the most important thing though in praying that I have learned is that I never should get to choose or should even want to choose the means by someone is delivered. I am only in the position to beg God. I may pray for God to deliver me in a certain way but I can't care how He does it. God is attracted to weakness and He can't resist our prayers when we come to the point of brokenness where we can only hold out our hands as a beggar and say, "Please Lord...please..."