"If the only prayer you say in your whole life is 'thank you,' that would suffice." Meister Eckhart

I stopped praying when I was still a child. I felt betrayed, and sadly became convinced that my prayers vanished into the indifferent air of my little room, unheard and discarded. For over 20 years I refused to pray, and when I occasionally experimented with prayer, I did so tentatively and with more than a little embarrassment.

I recall listening to a book-tape about a very brave and wonderful man who was struggling with cancer. He was an agnostic and refused to allow his fear to manipulate him into turning to a God in whom he no longer believed. One night while experiencing a significant amount of pain, he began to (pray?) saying with great feeling something to the effect that, "don't think that just because I'm scared and hurting that I'm going to come running to you for protection or count on you to rescue me!" Then it occurred to him that, "Who did I think I was talking to anyway?" The very being whose existence he adamantly denied he was now speaking to in earnest. I smiled in recognition. In many of us who at some point deny the existence of God, there exists a small seed of hope that perhaps we are wrong after all.

I am reminded here too, of my own old daughter's crisis of faith. She had learned at school to her devastation that there was no Santa Claus. She cried for days. Just before Christmas I took her to church, and about halfway through the service she turned to me and said, "I want to get out of here. God and Angels are just like the tooth fairy and Santa Claus. They aren't real!" She was angry and refused to discuss the matter further. Instead she withdrew into herself and wept bitter tears. On Christmas Eve, just before going to bed, she came to me and said, "Mom, I know there isn't a Santa Claus, but can we leave some carrots out for the reindeer, just in case?"

Whether or not one has abandoned his or her belief in God, I have found that prayer can be a great comfort and suggest it to my clients often. Joan Borysenko, in her book, "Fire In the Soul: A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism," points out that there is a significant amount of research demonstrating the power of prayer. I highly recommend the information she provides be explored, particularly the findings of "Spindrift", an organization devoted to the study of the efficacy of prayer.

Janiger and Goldberg, in "A Different Kind Of Healing," a book that focuses on why more and more physicians are embracing alternative forms of healing, includes the story of a Pennsylvania physician who prays for and sometimes with his patients. This physician shared with the authors that he was not a particularly religious person when he began his training to be a doctor. However, after witnessing many seemingly miraculous instances of recovery, he began to re-evaluate his personal beliefs. As his spiritual beliefs shifted, so did the way he viewed his role as a physician sharing that he now knows that healing involves more then medical treatment and consequently, he tries to minimize medication and utilizes education and changes in lifestyle instead.

Janiger and Goldberg cite several incidents reported by physicians around the country regarding extraordinary healings that appeared to have occurred as the result of spiritual interventions rather than medical maneuvers. Many of the physicians who came forward stressed the role of their patients' spiritual convictions in healing, suggesting that those who possessed such convictions fared significantly better than those who lacked spiritual faith. The authors conclude their eighth chapter by stating that while both actual facts as well as common sense must moderate beliefs, at the same time, we must not ignore the spiritual factors which clearly play a critical role in both the etiology and cure of disease. They also observe that almost everyone involved in medicine can affirm that there is significant power in strongly held beliefs adding that:

"Prayer and faith have long been known to relieve pain and suffering, and even, in certain remarkable instances, to bring about full recovery..."

In graduate school I commuted the first year with three fellow students, one of whom was a social worker for a hospice in the area. During one of our long rides to Bangor, she told me that she used to completely ignore spiritual matters, classifying them within the realm of myth and fairy tales, until she witnessed over and over the profoundly spiritual experiences of more than one dying patient. Today, she is a true believer who feels her life has been dramatically transformed as the result of the many lessons she learned from the dying.

Over 20 years after I abandoned prayer, I returned to it. I pray now in a way that I've come to believe is the most healing and effective means for me. I don't pray for a desired outcome. Instead, I have come to rely on what Dr. Larry Dossey, who published many of the results of Spindrift's findings in his book, "Recovering the Soul," describes as the "thy will be done" approach. In doing so, I do not ask for a particular outcome. "Thy will be done" means exactly what it says. "May your will (with your infinite wisdom), not my own, be done. In approaching prayer with this attitude, I've found a greater sense of peace. I've also come to know that my prayers do, indeed, make a difference as they invariably offer me comfort and hope.