I sometimes hear this, “I don’t know how to pray!” and I can’t help but think that that’s untrue. Praying is like breathing; it’s just the emptying out of something trapped within.

Let me give you an example of my sort of prayer. Right now, as I write, I am livid. Maniacally, insanely, rabidly mad at a colleague who was slowly inching into Friend Colony, until he did this despicable thing; he gleefully celebrated my mistake, exposing me to the harsh light of criticism when he had the decent and honourable alternative of quietly correcting my fault to me in person. His email trumpeted my negligence, blasting my ignorance in short, triumphant bursts to the powers that be. In an office space as combustible as ours, crumbs are easily magnified into whole loaves eaten by men with strong appetites for the fallen and long memories of the fall.

It is to these that my ‘friend’ merrily sacrificed me.

I sat shocked reading his email copying my seniors, an email that could have very easily been sent to me alone. And as usual, I tried to rationalise my anger away choosing to give him the benefit of the doubt. I conceded that perhaps if I had not been so negligent and remiss in my duties, this gremlin would never have had a chance to undermine me like this. Lesson learnt, so help me God.

I thought of moaning to the nearest friend or another colleague, justifying my actions and berating the young man’s conduct but I thought to myself, “…to what effect? It is spilt milk.” Sometimes when I am upset, I write. I was once told that I am not a very good ‘sharer’, I can carry burdens but don’t always share mine easily, this makes me a bit weighty sometimes. But I find that there is a certain uselessness in talking about problems; often the person spoken to has no power to make a difference or effectively resolve your problems. When verbalisation becomes solely for the purpose of ventilation, I think there is a problem.

Often, I turn to God when I have issues because He is the only one to whom that “verbalisation for ventilation” process actually yields results. That’s prayer; simple ventilation or often in my case, just ranting. Today in my anger, as I faced the bookshelf in the library pretending to be looking for a book while murmuring to God under my breath, I had to laugh when I heard myself repeating this litany;

“Oh God please do not let me go bat sh*t crazy!! Please God DON’T let me go bat sh*t crazy….” x 6/7 times.

Followed by a simple but clear request;

“…Give me the right strategy for this war! Dry the tears threatening to fall, like the breast milk of a lactating mother forced to wean her child.”

Lol, yes I am a weirdo…and yes, I am quite the contradiction.

But I have no doubt that my prayers were heard because in the end, all that matters is a genuine heart emptied before God.