Wrong Way Prayers

Dear G,

I’ve been doing a lot of praying recently. Actually I have prayed my whole life. But I never really knew I was doing it “wrong” until recently. I usually pray when I’m angry. I pray when I’m in pain. I pray for justice to be brought to those I am angry with. I pray for justice to those who have hurt me. I pray for you to see my resolution of the situation, what I believe the future should look like. I pray for you to let me be in control of others lessons. I pray for my will to be done. I didn’t even know this is how I was praying.

I believed that by saying “help them to see the truth” about their father, about their grandfather, about all the abusers and the sick that surround us that I was praying for their well-being. Really I was praying for the abusive to “get theirs”.  I was praying for them to feel the pain they have caused. I was praying for them to suffer.

When I used to meditate I would see a vision. Was this vision the vision of my own creation or were these the images of peace you were showing me to calm the depression and anxiety?

G,

I’m still angry and I still want them to suffer the way I have suffered. I want them to “get what they deserve”. I’m angry that I am getting what I deserve and it’s still filled with my own suffering. I suffer because my children have love for people who have hurt me so badly. I suffer because I use to love these people too. I don’t think my love for my ex-husband was real. I think that he was the perfect blend of my father and my sister and the boys in the woods. Two people whose love I had always fought for and people who easily took love from me.

I wanted them to love me so much. I wanted them to feel that family was the greatest love of all. Instead they always ran. They ran from me, they ran from each other, they ran as far as they could as often as they could. I loved them so deeply that I ignored the pain they were causing me. I let my need to be loved by them destroy me.

Then I invited in the hurt and the sick, year after year. I tried to save all the children in my world. I needed them to love me. I needed to save them to fill the hole that was caused by not being able to save my own family. What I judged as “saving”. It didn't matter what they believed they needed. It was about how I believed they (the students I taught, the men that I loved) needed to be saved.

I invited in the child my ex-husband raped. I tried to heal her pain. I ignored her sickness and I allowed her to use me. I allowed her to destroy my family and destroy my kids. She claims he raped her but she never stopped coming to the house. She never stopped spending the night. She played me and she possibly played him. She never did follow through with the charges. I pray every night that he still ends up in prison and that everyone finally believes how sick he really is. I pray every night that my kids don’t hate me. I pray that they turn their backs on my family just like my family did to me. I pray that they see me as having reason and wanting to keep them safe.

I am still praying for my will. When will I let it go? When will I give it over to you?