1 Thessalonians 5:17: “Never stop praying.”

This summer has been a season of difficult change and uncomfortable growth, not only for me but for several of my friends and family. Life has handed me several situations which have left me run down and defeated, and I am heartbroken for so many of my loved ones, who find themselves going through different circumstances of pain and loss. Through this oddly negative time, I find myself dealing with my heavy heart through constant prayer, not just on a day to day basis, but often even moment to moment. I desperately need it right now, and even crave it when I’m focused on other things. I am quite literally living on a prayer—Bon Jovi would wholeheartedly approve.

Prayer is central to life as a Christian, as it helps lift the burdens of life by communicating and giving them to God. That valuable communication leads to a healthy relationship with God. However, personally, there was a time in my life where my faith and prayer life was downright unhealthy. In fact, there was a time where my prayer life was straight up dead in the water.

My prayer life had pretty humble beginnings. As a little girl, I remember going through the same prayer ritual every single night—the classic, “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep,” with my own selfish requests thrown in at the end, and a hearty “ay-MEN” at the end. I considered prayer just one of the ingredients to being a Christian—throw in going to church and the avoiding of sin, bake at 350, and boom, you’ve got a nice Christian. Enjoy.

As many of us probably experienced, my childlike faith was tested somewhere in my adolescence, when I was visited by the cruel monster called Doubt. My questioning of the existence of God came with distress, and at the time I didn’t have the strength to pray through my problems, especially those concerning God. My doubt and the guilt that it brought threw a wrench in my prayer life—I thought, How can I pray to something that I don’t even know is there? Besides, He’s probably mad at me for doubting Him anyways, so He doesn’t want to hear from me.Defeated, I made the heartbreaking decision to give up on prayer. I just didn’t know what to say anymore, so I went silent.

That time of silence was one of the strangest times in my life and in my faith. I was constantly uncomfortable, because even though I didn’t know what to say, NOT praying seemed even more impossible than praying. But even after I got my questions of doubt answered, I had been silent for so long, and didn’t know how to start back up again. Regardless, I knew that I needed it, but it couldn’t be the same old stale routine that it had once been. Something had to give.

I started slow, by simply acknowledging his presence. “Hi, God.” It was small, but it still felt like a victory. At first I felt selfish praying for myself, so instead I would solely pray for friends, family, and even strangers on the street. As it became a habit again, I found myself praying in the car, in the shower, in church, at work, and before bed. Eventually, I worked my way up to asking Him questions, telling Him about my feelings, and praising him for who He is.

Slowly but surely, I actually started connecting with my prayers—something I had never experienced before. When you start realizing the weight of what prayer is, a conversation with the guy who made literally everything AND you, it isn’t hard to become engaged in your conversation, and often times, overwhelmed with emotion.

The remarkable thing is, looking back, I’ve realized that the awful time of silence was actually the best thing that ever happened to me. God has this weird way of making the bad things in our life work into something good (See Romans 8:28), and that’s certainly what happened here. The prayer life of my youth was not something that I was to carry into my adulthood—I was being called to something deeper and ultimately more satisfying.

God doesn't want repetition and routine in your prayer life, and He also doesn’t want to just be your genie in a bottle. He wants conversation, and a relationship with the authentic you. That means that He wants to hear about EVERYTHING—the good stuff and the bad (Philippians 4:6). What a gorgeous testament to God’s heart and who He is—not only is He king of the universe, but he’s also a loving and caring Father. Let this be an encouragement to take time to talk to Him, like, REALLY talk to Him. I know He’s dying to hear from you.