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  • Writer's pictureKaitlyn Harville

Awake My Soul

Updated: Mar 19, 2020


How fickle my heart and how woozy my eyes

I struggle to find any truth in your lies

And now my heart stumbles on things I don't know

My weakness I feel I must finally show


I find prayer to be the most difficult and most rewarding practice. In prayer, I feel the fickleness of my heart, and I realize that my spiritual sight is not as clear as it could be. I can struggle and wrestle my way in silence, and yet I can also find peace.


Prayer is the totality of Self brought into the presence of God. Thought, yes, but also emotion. Words, yes, but also silence. It brings our joys and thanksgivings to God, and it brings our heartache and our anger. God listens, and God speaks. And in the midst of that Divine Presence, our hearts sometimes leap and other times stumble. The Divine Presence sometimes feels like a Light in the darkness that this world shrouds us in. Other times the Divine Presence seems to obscure our vision like a thick cloud or mist. And in this tension of Light and Dark, our own weaknesses come to the forefront and make their debut on the stage of our minds.


Because prayer exposes weaknesses, we can sometimes shy away from deepening our prayer life. It's a natural self-preservation tactic. It is more comfortable to avoid the internal mess of our minds and hearts. And it is safer to keep Self to ourselves than to share it with Another. But when we move past our discomfort with discovering Self, we will find that prayer opens us up to new growth in the same way as pruning benefits a vine.


Prayer is not only something done by us but something done in us. If we give God space in the conversation, and if we listen with our hearts attuned to the stirrings of the Divine, we will hear. Sometimes we hear the encouragement we need. Sometimes we hear ways that we can grow more in the example of Christ and bring the Kingdom a little closer to earth. Sometimes we hear words of correction where we have sinned by thought, word, or deed - by things done and things left undone. And other times we hear the still small voice of "I AM" whispering simple and yet profound Presence into our hearts.


In these bodies we will live

In these bodies we will die

Where you invest your love

You invest your life


Within ourselves we hold the capacity for both Life and Death. We choose between these great powers daily. We can encourage and build one another up, or we can cut down our neighbor with our words. We can be harbingers of destruction in our relationships by creating toxic environments, or we can be agents of peace in a troubled world bearing kindness and forgiveness. Through Christ we are given freedom to walk in the way of Life and given strength to triumph over the power of Death.


The way of Life is always marked by Love. And conversely, where Love is found, there is Life. These two go hand in hand. God, who is Love, offers us Life. And not just Life, but Life-Everlasting which begins in the ever present Now. In this newness of Life we are called to be agents of Love. Where we work to sow Love, we will reap Life and see the healing of our broken world one small piece at a time.


Awake my soul

For you were made to meet your maker


Prayer wakes us up. It opens our mind's eye to see the truth of our own souls. Are we choosing Life or are we choosing Death? Are we loving God and loving our neighbor, or are we contributing to the brokenness that is so prevalent in this world? It's safer and more comfortable to live a slumbering life, drowsily meandering through our days without truly engaging with our souls or our souls' Creator.


Prayer is a call to allow our souls to rise from our sleepy state and meet the Creator. We will spend the next few weeks engaging in techniques that wake our souls to the Presence of God. We will follow a practice known as the Examen. This is a spiritual exercise written on by St. Ignatius of Loyola. We will explore the steps of the Examen and talk about how they can help us to deepen our prayer life. Through all this, we will see that it is an exercise in Love. As we continue to invest in Love, may we continue to rise in newness of life in Christ.


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