Prayer

I've had some experiences with prayer recently that are altering my whole view on the idea of prayer. I used to think to myself, "Oh crap, I guess I should probably go and pray to God today because that is what's necessary to become a better person," but things are different lately and I'm glad. That way of thinking is not only a load of religious stupidity, but it is also wrong. I've finally realized that it honestly doesn't matter how good I become in this lifetime because I'm still going to miss perfection by a long-shot.

The other day I was about to start class with a short prayer before we jumped into the lesson, but I decided that I'd do things differently. I told the students to just take a few minutes to talk to God and tell Him what was on their minds. While they prayed, or just sat there, I seriously begged God silently for the strength and patience to deal with my students for the day. It was a shift from what I'm usually asking for in prayer, generally, I ask for the strength to do this and that, but this time I was asking it to be what my students needed for the day.

I will be forthright with saying that there are a lot of kids at this school that have REALLY MESSED UP histories. Some of the Sudanese students have seen their parents shot in front of them, many of the Egyptian boys haven't seen their fathers in years since they are off working in Kuwait, a shocking amount of the Sudanese girls have been raped, and many of the Egyptian girls are treated as inferiors in their home. As you can tell from the descriptions of these students that they've had it rough and when it comes down to it they need to be loved. I will be honest and say that it's hard to love a kid that is openly disrespectful, even if he has had it rough. That is why I seriously ask God to work through me to be what these kids need.

It has made my "prayer life" a lot more enjoyable because FINALLY it isn't such a selfish motion to go through. I'm not asking God to make me patient so I'll be a "nice guy" but because they legitimately NEED somebody to be patient. I can't even begin to understand the feelings of pain and chaos many of them go through and so I'm going to ask God to be what they need for the day.

I also had a good experience of praying with the boy's dean today. I don't really get along with him very well because we disagree on a lot of things, but the one thing that remains the same is that we want to help the students. I prayed with him today for some of the students that are struggling and even though it was only a few minutes; I feel like it changed things between us. It made me realize that, YES, he does care about the students and we're working towards the same goal- even though I couldn't understand what he was praying!

The concept of prayer is finally starting to make a bit of sense to me.