Father, I do not know how to pray. I was taught many recitations and dogmas, but none seem to connect me to you sustainably.
But I know how to commune, so let us commune.
I have been on a long journey with you from birth, and you have been ever-present. You know the arc of my life, and I feel reassured in that knowledge, for it is you who shapes the arc.
There are times I desire a straight line, but if life was a straight line, mine would have ended a long time ago, with the consequences of my actions. I have not gotten all I deserved, and for that, I am grateful.
The life in me bobs like the surface of an ocean, but it runs deep because it is anchored in your breath. Your breath in me helps me breathe easy.
You calm the storms around and within me. You calm the storms I create and the ones I sail into. The storms you do not calm helps to show me the parts of me requiring strengthening, and you do not let me get past them until I am strengthened. In many storms, I search for you because I lack understanding, but like all searches, you are never lost, just waiting.
I sometimes ask for what I think I need. I smile as I go further along on my arc, with gratitude that you neither give all I ask nor give in when I throw tantrums.
There have been times I have resisted your will, even when you shone the light on what comes next. As your son, I needed to show you that I had come of age, and could take any cross that comes with my choices. You have respected my choice, but always left an alternative path of redemption.
Every day in your presence, I grow, especially when I feel small. I am always in your presence, especially when I feel lonely. Remembering you are here is comforting, it also sometimes embarrassing, especially when I am not living your word.
I smile often because you know me, there’s no deceit in my relationship with you, even though I often deceive myself.
I have learnt through journeying with you that life is an adventure. Instead of continually asking for what I do not have, I am learning daily to observe, accept and explore all that you bring to my path. But as your son, with the full knowledge that you own all things, I still ask sometimes, only to realise that you had my requests planned out before my asking.
I am privileged to call you Father, and you enjoy calling me son, more than I can ever understand. I live to make you proud. I live to love you and all you have put in my care.
Teach me to listen. To listen to your word.
Teach me to live. To live by your word.
Teach me to love. To love your word.
May your word continually become flesh in me.
– Osasu Oviawe
