Prayer

Prayer is a really great thing, which is an understatement. It keeps me going better than coffee during finals. 

It seems silly to me that we worry so much about everything when all we really have to do is talk to God about it and chill because He's got this. 

Right now, for instance, I'm laying awake when I should be going to sleep, allowing the dread that I've been more or less successfully fending off for weeks now to build up while I think about my pending journey back to the realm of academia, but more disturbing - away from home.

I don't like living by myself. I'm definitely not a people person, but I've been in a house with 4 people and several pets for almost a dozen years now, and I don't handle a quiet Shoebox very well. It gives me time to think up things to worry about, including, but not limited to: classes, waking up to go to them, studying, doing well on tests; being an antisocial, second breakfast-loving hobbit on a campus of 25,000+ people; thinking I should be involved in more things to beef up a future resume; being away from home...

I lay awake sometimes worried that I'm not worrying about more. Like if I'm not developing stomach ulcers I'm not getting the job done. (Which is a common characteristic in people with anxiety disorders by the way. Not that I spend just as much time diagnosing as I do worrying.) It's like a twisted kind of hobby.

Which is really just incredibly stupid when all I have to do to experience the most profound peace I've ever felt in my anxious little life is pray about it.

I worry about being alone. And when I get scared of something I break it down and analyze it and try to understand why it scares me. And it's not really that I'm afraid of being alone. This definition of alone being by myself for an extended period of time with no direct contact to people I love, you understand; I can handle sitting in a room by myself or reading alone for a few hours. Most fears are of some unpleasant stimulus being present like snakes or spiders or crazy looking guys with weapons, which are healthy fears to some extent, but I dread being alone because it's a loss of a comfort I've come to rely upon greatly.

One of the great things about God, though, is that He's really mobile. Put Him in your pocket. Take Him anywhere. I shouldn't dread being locked in the Shoebox because I can pray to Him from there as well as anywhere. 

We should develop praying like a reflex. Like when we're little and we get a scrape and we run to Momma for a bandaid. Every time we get a cut or nick emotionally or any other kind of -ly we should run to God looking for comfort. 

And I want to do that. I want to talk to Him constantly. I want to walk down the sidewalk with a conversation going in my head like I'm talking to my best friend. I've always thought it would be kind of neat to have someone who's able to hear your thoughts and talk to you with theirs. And then I smack myself and think of what an idiot I am for not realizing I do have one.

Everything's going to be alright.

It's all part of the growing process which is always challenging and more than a little painful.

Just take deep breaths. Enjoy this moment while it's here and quit worrying about the next one.

Remember to pray.