Ugh, Jealous

Why can’t I pray like she does?

How many times have I jealously thought this to myself? I have wondered why others appear to have closer relationships with God.

She can have long conversations with the Lord!

She can recite so many prayers from memory!

She sticks to each novena she starts!

Pure jealousy. I sit there, head bowed, but looking around to see what others are doing. I compare my prayer life to that of my sister. I envy her closeness with the Lord and how she seems to have the Holy Spirit touch her every word and action.

But isn’t that exactly what I’ve been warned against? I reject the Word of God and His overwhelming love and adoration of me for a comparison game. No, I don’t pray like she does.

But that’s okay. It’s good. And it’s how God designed it. Instead of being jealous as the Jews were in the First Reading, we are glad that we each have our own relationship with God.

I do have my own, wholly unique relationship with the Lord. I pray in my own way. Sometimes I pray a rosary, sometimes I recite memorized prayers, sometimes I journal, sometimes I sit in silence in Adoration, sometimes I meet Him in Scripture, and sometimes I shake my fists in the air and in exasperation say, “What do you even want from me, God!?”

My prayer life changes with the seasons of my life. It evolves, it ebbs and flows, sometimes being fruitful and transformative, and sometimes being pushed aside altogether. I feel the most connected with Him when I’m on my knees, arms outstretched, and singing in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament.

He loves me and meets me where I am.

I pray in my own way.Click to tweet

Watch this brief clip of Saint Teresa of Calcutta about the gift of God's love.

Dr. Samantha Aguinaldo-Wetterholm is a wife to Paul, mom to three little ones, and practices dentistry at a public health community center for low income families in the Bay Area, California. She (unashamedly) thinks ice cream is its own food group, loves anything Harry Potter, does not leave the house without wearing sparkly earrings, and is an enthusiastic proponent of the Oxford comma. Find out more about her here.