All my life, I’ve critiqued prayers.

In third grade Sunday school class, I giggled when the Schroeder boy asked God for a new bicycle. We all giggled, knowing we weren’t supposed to pray for things like that. We were supposed to pray for the missionaries and our soldiers in Vietnam.

In my teens, I rolled my eyes at every “thee” and “thou.” Too flowery and old-fashioned for me. And our preacher’s voice in prayer at the beginning of a sermon? Too dramatic, too rehearsed, with the appropriate octavelong drop beseeching his “Gawd.”

Soon, my giggles and peeves turned to cynicism. No one was immune, not the struggling dieter who wanted God to keep her from overeating, nor the group in a prayer meeting that ticked off a review of sick relatives.

I began sitting through prayer meetings, biting my lip to keep from making sarcastic remarks about prayer lists — numbered requests to check off when things turned out the way we wanted so everyone could agree, “Isn’t God good?” Sometimes, I’d draw my mouth into a thin line to keep from sneering at all the other devices I wrote off as gimmicks designed to make us feel God would somehow hear us better.

Then in prayer group one morning, everything stopped, like the drop of the curtain on a theater stage, bringing the drama to its muffled halt. Only not in the room, not in the eight women in our prayer circle. In me.

Discreetly tucked away in a corner, where I had disentangled myself from what I labeled formula and shallow language, I heard my name.

“Barbara, would you lead us in prayer?”

Dear Lord, as this new year is born
I give it to Thy hand,
Content to walk by faith what paths
I cannot understand.

Whatever coming days may bring
Of bitter loss, or gain,
Or every crown of happiness;
Should sorrow come, or pain,

Or, Lord, if all unknown to me
Thine angel hovers near
To bear me to that farther shore
Before another year,

It matters not my hand in Thine,
Thy light upon my face,
Thy boundless strength when I am week,
Thy love and saving grace!

I only ask, loose not my hand,
Grip fast my soul, and be
My guiding light upon the path
Till, blind no more, I see!

–Martha Snell Nicholson

Heavenly Father, Help us remember that the jerk who cut us off in traffic last night is a single mother who worked nine hours that day and is rushing home to cook dinner, help with homework, do the laundry and spend a few precious moments with her children.

Help us to remember that the pierced, tattooed, disinterested young man who can’t make change correctly is a worried 19-year-old college student, balancing his apprehension over final exams with his fear of not getting his student loans for next semester.

Remind us, Lord, that the scary looking bum, begging for money in the same spot every day (who really ought to get a job!) is a slave to addictions that we can only imagine in our worst nightmares.

Help us to remember that the old couple walking annoyingly slow through the store aisles and blocking our shopping progress are savoring this moment, knowing that, based on the biopsy report she got back last week, this will be the last year that they go shopping together.

Heavenly Father, remind us each day that, of all the gifts you give us, the greatest gift is love. It is not enough to share that love with those we hold dear. Open our hearts not to just those who are close to us, but to all humanity. Let us be slow to judge and quick to forgive, show patience, empathy and love.