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There are 3 basic prayers: Help. Thanks. Wow.
So says Anne Lamott in her book HELP THANKS WOW – The Three Essential Prayers. Below is the gist of her book. All quotes are hers.
Keep it simple – “God can handle honesty, and prayer begins in honest conversation. My belief is that when you are telling the truth, you are close to God.”
Help – “Help us walk through this. Help us come through. It is the first great prayer.” “Praying ‘Help’ means that we ask the Something give us the courage to stop in our tracks….”
Thanks – “You say, Thank you for lifting this corner of the curtain so I can see the truth, maybe for just a moment, but in a way that might change my life forever.” “To have been so lost that you felt abducted, to feeling found returned, and set back onto you feet: Oh my God, thank you – thankyouthankyou. Thank you. Thanks.”
Wow – “‘Wow’ means we are not dulled to wonder. We click into being fully present where we’re stunned into that gasp…’Wow’ is having ones mind blown by the mesmerizing or the miraculous: the veins in a leaf, birdsong, volcanoes.”
Why pray? – C.S. Lewis wrote: “I pray because I can’t help myself. I pray because I’m helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time, waking and sleeping. It doesn’t change God. It changes me.”
“Those are the basic instructions, to which I can add only: Amen. Let it happen!”
