When I was married to a drinking alcoholic I used to pray that he would stop drinking. It seemed like a logical thing to pray for — like it would solve many of “our” problems.

Our relationship landed me in Al-Anon, thankfully. One day in a meeting I had a realization that although I believed in God, I thought I was smarter than God. It struck me as so funny! “Oh, I’m NOT smarter than God,” I thought. Chuckle. What the hell kind of God was I believing in that was less informed than I was? Who I knew better than? And why would I pray for what I thought should happen to someone else? How did I know what was best?

(Part two of that realization was that his drinking was not “our” problem. It was his problem. I had my own problems, and enough of them without trying to load his crap on top of what I already had to work on! That’s a whole other post probably.)

Prophetically, my wusband (husband, past tense) used to say, “I have to lose an arm, or you, to quit drinking.”

After I left and got my own house, he stopped by one night looking sad. I said, “Why don’t you quit drinking and we can live here together and sell the other house?”

“You’ll have a boyfriend before I quit drinking,” the seer said. I met my now-husband on a Friday and on Saturday the wusband got into a car accident that almost ended his work career and did end his drinking career.

Yes, the transition out of that long-term love and the life I had envisioned was difficult yet I felt a perfection in it. Like a contract had been fulfilled. We had done some work and had helped one another. And the life I have now is wonderful and as it should be. All is well.

All is always well, I have come to believe. It may not be what I would wish for all the time but I have faith in a God that is in all things and is smarter than me. Things are unfolding as opportunities for us to learn, to see what we are creating and to ultimately move closer to being Love, to allowing God to stream through our lives to one another and the world.

So now I don’t pray for things to happen to people. I’m not going to pray for you to be healed, helped or saved. Sorry.

People do ask me to pray for them. People put calls out on social media for “prayers”. And I will pray, but it may not be what they are expecting or exactly what they are asking for. I will connect with my God from inside myself. I will let the feeling of Eternal Love rise up. I will think of the person asking for prayers and see them and me surrounded in that light. I will ask angels or other intermediary figures to please be with them as they walk their path. If you’re sick I will picture you well and remember you in a vibrant state. I pray for guidance for myself, or more for the ability to hear the guidance I am being given in my life each moment.

I get messages from people saying that they are praying for me to know Jesus, to accept him as the one true savior, with a quote from the bible tagged on usually. I find it curious. I can not conceive of, anymore, a God so small that only one person or path would lead to the Truth to the exclusion of so much of the world rather than a God who is omnipotent and omnipresent.

So I won’t pray for you to believe anything either.

My prayer for you is this Love I feel now. It’s an offering, an invitation. If you want to, accept it and pass it on.