'OhGodOhGodOhGod'

Yesterday I had a new experience. I drove through the mountains from Banff to Abbotsford, by myself, with only a voice reading Philip Yancey's book on prayer to keep me company. It was quite an amazing 10 hours. I left a brisk autumn Banff morning,the sun was shinning, the ground was brown and the air was vibrant. The mountains were so closely leaning over the road I could feel their breath on my car. Two hours into my drive the mountains disappeared, snow and fog had stolen them from my sight and I drove on, only able to see the car in front of me and the mysterious winter around me . In a few hours I passed through winter and on to a spring, so to speak, here I was met with pelting rain, the return of the jagged mountains and emerald lakes. This took me into a certain summer, filled with sunshine and intriguing valleys that finally led me to the Chiliwack river whose mountainous treescape shared their evening rain with me until I arrived here in Abbotsford.

Quite the trip. During this drive I thought about a great many of things, I listened to the voice from the CD sharing Yancey's thoughts on prayer and considered my own thoughts on prayer. Somewhere along the trip, the words of Yancey's book made me think of a conversation I had had with a friend not too long ago. She was commenting on prayer language. She had noticed that everyone who prays semi-regularly seems to revert back to favourite phrases, praises and pleas. Between them and God there exists a unique dialect of commonly spoken words. And I wondered; what is my dialect, what are my beautiful words?

And it struck me, more than any other prayer God receives from my heart is the 'Oh God.' prayer. But it is more like 'OhGodOhGodOhGod.' This is the prayer I often pray at night. Nearly every night I lie in my warm bed, covered by a cozy quilt and my mind takes me back to wander the streets of East Hastings in Vancouver, the North End of Winnipeg, the alleys of Regina and other dark places my heart has seen. And I curl myself into a ball and the only words of prayer that can spill out of my mouth are 'OhGodOhGodOhGod.'

This is also the prayer I unconsciously pray in dire situations. A few summers ago I can remember driving (way too fast) down a gravel road in the middle of the Southern Saskatchewan prairies, only to feel the rear end of my car start to fishtail. Soon I was being flicked from one side of the gravel road to the other and what prayer fell out of my mouth? Yes, the 'OhGodOhGodOhGod' prayer made another appearance...

Countless times I have prayed this prayer, when holding a wailing friend whom I can do nothing physically to help, God receives an 'OhGodOhGodOhGod' prayer on their behalf. The prairie sunset, the mountain stream view, the new born baby all of these wonders invoke in me a loss of words and I simply pray the 'Oh God' prayer.

I have to admit this is not the beautiful dialect of prayer I was hoping to discover. There is no poetry or rhythm to these prayers. Upon first glance they lack the maturity that should be evident in prayer. Or do they? They are simple. They are not over dressed. They are always heartfelt. They are childish. And it softly occurred to me as I breathed those familiar words yet another time as my car rounded a mountain to take in another glorious view, that my prayer dialect is probably the most honest thing about me, and that honesty is what makes it beautiful.