How Can I Even Pray?

I stood in the kitchen, damp hair against my back, forming a soggy imprint in my pajama shirt. The skin around my eyes still tight and warm from an evening shower after tennis. I filled the glass blender with a generous handful of ice, a browning banana and a few other ingredients for a nighttime snack. As I tipped the bag of mini chocolate chips against the glass rim and watched the tiny dots speckle the chunky pile, I smiled. A little bit of chocolate makes everything better. 

I stared into my creation and started to pray. I like to talk to God while I’m living my daily life. Call it irreverent, but I call it genuine and beautifully habitual. The way you call a true friend without having written notes on a paper to recite. The kind of song you sing without needing the music. The laugh that flows naturally without a hint of force. 

So as I stood there, talking with God over my slightly-unhealthy and indulgent smoothie, I thanked him for a few things before I remembered the suffering attacking the souls on this earth. The thought hit me like a quick pinch. But still, I rattled out a prayer for the Christian women in Afghanistan that were fleeing to the mountains. My prayer for them was sandwiched between thanking God for a healthy body and staring into the perfectly shaped drops of chocolate.

How can I even pray?

How can I even pray for the suffering women escaping with only the clothes on their backs when I have decadent food at my fingertips?

How can I even pray for the persecuted Christians when I have my church right down the road that I casually stroll into each Sunday morning with a coffee in hand and nonchalant hugs and hellos?

How can I even pray when these girls face such horror and I’m so offended when a man tells me to smile?

How can I even pray when they’ll be murdered for believing in Jesus and my Bible rests easily on my coffee table next to my television remotes?

How can I even pray when they will die for obeying God and I can barely muster the words “I’ll be praying for you” to an unbelieving friend?

How can I even pray as children are starving and I’m beginning to sip the blended chocolate specks through my plastic straw that floats in my flamingo-patterned cup?

My words feel futile and weak. Can they even have meaning when flowing from such an unworthy voice? 

I imagine their faces and heavy breaths as they run. I sit on my couch, staring into the final blobs of my drink. I think I’m disgusted with myself. All of my surplus and plenty and lack of need has made me feel so far away from anything real.

How can I even pray…but then, I hear a nudge, how could you not?