{"id":23,"date":"2024-04-13T11:22:28","date_gmt":"2024-04-13T11:22:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/?p=23"},"modified":"2024-04-27T08:06:53","modified_gmt":"2024-04-27T08:06:53","slug":"what-to-do-when-you-cannot-pray","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/2024\/04\/13\/what-to-do-when-you-cannot-pray\/","title":{"rendered":"What to Do When You Cannot Pray"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You sit down, close your eyes and then&#8230;nothing. What happens when you cannot pray? <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I know that the popular theory is to force it because something is forcing you not to pray. But early on in my faith, I made sure that I found other ways to communicate with God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Why? Because sometimes I will not speak verbally to my circle but I&#8217;ll send them memes or videos. Because sometimes I&#8217;ll WhatsApp my friends and sometimes I&#8217;ll call them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If we don&#8217;t communicate with our friends and family in ONE specific way, why shouldn&#8217;t we expand the way we communicate with our Father?<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"683\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/What-to-do-When-You-Cannot-Pray-683x1024.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-24\" srcset=\"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/What-to-do-When-You-Cannot-Pray-683x1024.png 683w, https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/What-to-do-When-You-Cannot-Pray-200x300.png 200w, https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/What-to-do-When-You-Cannot-Pray-768x1152.png 768w, https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/What-to-do-When-You-Cannot-Pray.png 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">1. Journal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Part-diary, part-prayer book, I keep a notebook where I write everything that happened during the day and how I felt about this. This specific journal is for God&#8217;s eyes only. It started as a way to document my return to religion and then all of a sudden I was writing in it everyday. I felt a little silly because obviously He KNEW what was going on in my life and how I felt about it. But it made me feel less alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">2. Write a Letter<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>You might ask how is this different? I have a collection of letters I wrote during an especially difficult time in my life. They&#8217;re pasted or slotted in various books of my Bible but every time I find one I open and read it and it makes me so happy. They&#8217;re all old prayers and it humbles me to see how nervous I was and how vulnerable I was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">3. Just Talk<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>This is probably one of my favourite things to do when I cannot pray. I start with &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how to pray&#8221; or &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why I can&#8217;t pray but I just wanted to tell you that&#8221; and then go into all the things. I am the type of person who can talk for hours so these sessions tend to go on for a bit but by the end of it, I feel better and 9 times out of 10 I usually end up stopping or pausing the conversation because all of a sudden I need to pray about something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">4. Sing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>I have the habit of singing everything. So I started a specific playlist of Gospel songs that no matter what my mood is, I can sing along to. Eventually I go off on a tangent and either end up singing to God what I&#8217;m feeling\/doing\/wanting or I eventually feel like going and talking to Him about my life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What do you do when you  cannot pray? I&#8217;d love to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You sit down, close your eyes and then&#8230;nothing. What happens when you cannot pray? I know that the popular theory is to force it because something is forcing you not to pray. But early on in my faith, I made sure that I found other ways to communicate with God. Why? Because sometimes I will not speak verbally to my circle but I&#8217;ll send them memes or videos. Because sometimes I&#8217;ll WhatsApp my friends and sometimes I&#8217;ll call them. If we don&#8217;t communicate with our friends and family in ONE specific way, why shouldn&#8217;t we expand the way we communicate with our Father? 1. Journal Part-diary, part-prayer book, I keep a notebook where I write everything that happened during the day and how I felt about this. This specific journal is for God&#8217;s eyes only. It started as a way to document my return to religion and then all of a sudden I was writing in it everyday. I felt a little silly because obviously He KNEW what was going on in my life and how I felt about it. But it made me feel less alone. 2. Write a Letter You might ask how is this different? I have a collection of letters I wrote during an especially difficult time in my life. They&#8217;re pasted or slotted in various books of my Bible but every time I find one I open and read it and it makes me so happy. They&#8217;re all old prayers and it humbles me to see how nervous I was and how vulnerable I was. 3. Just Talk This is probably one of my favourite things to do when I cannot pray. I start with &#8220;I don&#8217;t know how to pray&#8221; or &#8220;I don&#8217;t know why I can&#8217;t pray but I just wanted to tell you that&#8221; and then go into all the things. I am the type of person who can talk for hours so these sessions tend to go on for a bit but by the end of it, I feel better and 9 times out of 10 I usually end up stopping or pausing the conversation because all of a sudden I need to pray about something. 4. Sing I have the habit of singing everything. So I started a specific playlist of Gospel songs that no matter what my mood is, I can sing along to. Eventually I go off on a tangent and either end up singing to God what I&#8217;m feeling\/doing\/wanting or I eventually feel like going and talking to Him about my life. What do you do when you cannot pray? I&#8217;d love to know.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"book_review_cover_url":"","book_review_title":"","book_review_series":"","book_review_author":"","book_review_genre":"","book_review_isbn":"","book_review_publisher":"","book_review_release_date":"","book_review_format":"","book_review_pages":"","book_review_source":"","book_review_rating":"","book_review_summary":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faith"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23\/revisions\/47"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forsuchatimeasthis.co.za\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}