I just got back in town from helping my parents recover from an unexpected health scare. Everything’s all right now, but it’s been a pretty disruptive few weeks.
By now, I’ve gotten used to my new way of living after faith, but when life sucker punches you, it’s hard not to notice how different things are than they were before.
Before, I would have found a lot of peace in trusting God’s sovereignty, in the hope of heaven should the worst happen, in believing that my prayers had power to affect the will of God and bring about good news. I would have turned to prayer as a crucial and effective coping mechanism.
Now, it all feels a little more random and meaningless. Bad things happen to good people, there’s no sure afterlife to makeup for the pain of this one, and there’s no magical word or wish I can feel or utter that will change what is going to happen.
And yet, when going through the last few weeks, I still found myself turning to prayer.
Is this just old programming?
Or this there something about prayer that transcends religion, and comes from our innate humanity?
Here’s what I’ve come to:
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