They tell me, Lord, that when I seem
To be in speech with you,
Since but one voice is heard, it’s all a dream,
One talker aping two.

Sometimes it is, yet not as they
Conceive it. Rather, I
Seek in myself the things I hoped to say,
But lo!, my wells are dry.

Then, seeing me empty, you forsake
The listener’s role and through
My dumb lips breathe and into utterance wake
The thoughts I never knew

And thus you neither need reply
Nor can; thus, while we seem
Two talkers, though are One forever, and I
No dreamer, but thy dream” (Unknown, quoted in Letters to Malcolm by C. S. Lewis).

That’s how prayer works for me. Sometimes, I feel like I’m talking to the ceiling. My words can’t possibly be reaching God’s ears, and if they are, He doesn’t seem to hear. But then I remember that God is not just in some faraway heaven beyond all time and space. He’s in the room with me.

Other times, my prayers seem to come from somewhere else. I find myself praying words the same way an actor speaks lines written by another. It’s as if God Himself is giving me the very words to speak to Him the desires of my heart.

Often, I will rattle off a list of my own requests and desires and then give God no time to reply. Even then, I think He hears the heart cry behind the list. He is way more patient with me than I am with Him most of the time.

On occasion, I won’t even be able to speak. Either through grief or fear, I can’t find the words. In those moments, the Holy Spirit and Jesus intercede for me in those groanings too deep for words.

Whatever the case, I am never alone. If there is but one voice speaking, it’s not mine, but God praying through me to God who hears and honors the request. Not God in the sense of me and all things are a part of God, but God as holy and totally other who still dwells in me and makes Himself known to me. That God.