the power of praise and prayer

I’ve been reflecting on the transformative power of words as used in praise and prayer. The verses in the Bible have the power to call upon angels to protect us, guide us, and comfort us. Speaking the words out loud during prayer is like sprinkling stardust on the spaces between us, creating something out of the void, shedding light on the darkness.

In my private Bible study time, I started reading the book of John again. And when I mean reading, I don’t mean skimming the verses and highlighting them meaninglessly and not really processing the meaning, but really seeing. Seeing the truth behind what happened in the Beginning, when the Word first started to live and love and give light. When light was light and shone in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot overcome it. (John 1:5)

When everything started to fall apart and darkness started to grow and overcome the light, when entropy overcame the angels lifting us up, when gravity consumed us and the sky started falling —

Have you ever felt that you had no control over your life and things fall into pieces and you don’t know how to deal with the chaos and the space between you and your dreams and accepting the inevitable truth that things will never be the same again?

I have. And many others before me have and many others after me will too.

When words became tainted with sin, darkness starts to fill us, preventing us from healing, preventing us from fixing what we broke and was broken about us. Cracks made in the sky, and it’s not falling pure rain anymore, but falling sin.

Then Jesus came, and he changed everything.

Light fought again, and we became children of the light, and we embrace the light, the light that consumes us to heal us.

I was filled with the darkness for a long time. Dark energy around us, in media, in crime, in disaster, in corruption, in the web, in the people around us, in disease.

I fell from my faith a long time ago. Shamed in front of the congregation at the Catholic church that I insisted my family would go to, I left the church and forgot everything I knew about Christianity. I left my mind go devoid, and forgetting is the worst thing I could have done.

It’s not forgetting that will heal you. It’s remembering and bathing the memories in light. Carefully handling them and letting the words of God heal the wounds of the past.

Never forget, because forgetting will never heal you, forgetting will not seal the memories, forgetting will not change you.

I filled myself with the Holy Spirit when I started reading the Bible again. Letting the Spirit transform me. Coming back to my faith was difficult. It took commitment, it took reading the Word every single day for years.

I’m letting the word of Love transform me. Praying for everyone I’ve gained and lost because I don’t want the darkness to take away the memories and people I treasured once and still do to this day.

Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. (Matthew 6:21)

That is the power of prayer, to cover wounds with words of love and peace and hope and forgiveness.

I treasure the people I loved once before, and I still do. And one by one, I hope they come back to me again. Just like words, memories I’ve lost, I’ll regain the equilibrium.

Nothing loved is ever lost or perished. (Madeline L’engle, A Ring of Endless Light)