...prayer changes things/prayer changes me.

I woke up around 8am. The sun was shinning with no homework to cloud the day. The start to a fantastic day. A fantastic day, that I couldn't get out of bed for. Although all around me was beauty, all I felt was pain. In that morning; those mornings, all I had to do was awaken to experience the pain I felt as I drifted off to sleep the night before, hoping somehow that it would disappear as I slept.

Growing up in church, I've been told over and over that prayer changes things. When God's people pray people are delivered from the messes they find themselves in. Living in a dirty world, its hard to stay clean sometimes. Learning to walk isn't a clean endeavor, and we've all fallen. However in these mornings I began to notice something. No matter how hard I prayed, I still experienced the pain, It took me a long time to recognize the deeper pattern that had been hiding beneath the surface.

When prayer didn't change my circumstances, prayer changed me. Through prayer I found the strength I needed to roll out of bed and get myself ready for another day. Another day to learn through the pain I felt from the view of my wheelchair. Through prayer I learned to see things differently and I was able to learn lessons otherwise ignored.

A lesson I was never taught in Sunday School. As the song goes "sometimes He calms the storm and other times He calms His child". I don't understand the way He moves, but I'm glad He still moves. And I'm glad He moves with grace and love through, and in His children.