The True Meaning of Prayer

Prayer, my friend, is not to change God's mind. It's to change you. Good morning, sunshine. Welcome to the Faith and Growth podcast, the space where psychology and spirituality come together to help you rise into the person you were created to be. If you're ready to stop playing small and start living the life God designed for you, I got you. I'm Dr. Betsighera, psychotherapist, speaker, and author, and I'm here to help you heal, rise, and walk boldly in your purpose. So if you're ready to do that, let's get started. May 19, 2014. I woke up, and something was really wrong. I was pregnant with Mia, and it was nine months after losing Fofi, and I couldn't feel her all night. I woke up with that sensation of something's wrong. She did not move last night, and she used to move a lot at night. She wouldn't let me sleep. And that night, I could not feel her. So I woke up feeling fearful and thinking, like, could something happen to her, too? And I remember, like, going to the bathroom, calling the doctor, and the doctor telling me, rush to my office right now. I need to do a sonogram. And I wanted to obey and, like, just immediately go. But first, I just prayed and I begged God, like, God, please protect my baby girl. I can't do this again. I can't go through this again. Please, Lord, please protect my baby girl. Like, let her be born safely. And I remember, like, just praying and praying, and I. And I called my mom. My mom always has words of wisdom, and she's a true woman of faith. She just. She just knows what to say and when to say it when it's a matter of faith. So I called her, and I'm like, mommy, Mommy. Like, something's wrong. I know something's wrong. She's not moving, Mommy. What do I do? And she's like, betsy, everything's going to be okay. Just pray. I'm like, I've been praying, but for what? What am I praying for? God's going to do whatever the heck he wants anyway. As he did with. Like, why pray? He didn't answer to me. He didn't ask, do what? I asked him. Like, he wasn't listening. Like, what if he doesn't listen now either? Like, why pray? And then she said something that forever changed my life, and I hope it will change yours as well. She said, betsy, prayer is not to change God's mind. He's God. Prayer is to change yours. I'm going to tell you that again. Prayer Is not to change God's mind. It's to change yours. And when I think about that moment, something about that message resonated. It sounds really obvious when I think about it, but sometimes we think we are God. I speak for myself. Sometimes I think I am God. I think I know what's best for me, for my children, for my loved ones. And I tell him what to do. God, do this. And I give him a whole laundry list because I think I know so much. And if there's something that I have learned in my experience of loss, is that God's plans for me, for my daughter, for you, are better than our own. Always, always, you cannot even imagine the plans God has for you and those you love. So we get to trust, and we get to know that he is God. And, you know, I remember at that moment feeling like peace because I knew that he got me, and I trusted that he was going to keep my daughter safe, which is what I thought I needed to be happy, to survive, to have hope, to continue to live and move forward. And ultimately, he was going to make sure that everything that I needed was taken care of, as he did when he called Fofi home. The reason I wanted Fofi to stay with me was because I thought that was the only way I could be happy again. It was the only way that I could live. I couldn't survive without her. And here I am, the happiest woman on earth with her. Because we believe that love transcends death. We believe that life doesn't end here in this earth. We believe that in eternity. And my daughter lives on, as do our relationship. So maybe God didn't fulfill how I wanted to experience the peace that surpasses all understanding, which was by keeping her, the joy that depends not on external separation circumstances. Like, he knew I needed, I thought I needed my daughter. What I needed was him. And many times we put people, things, identities, jobs, experiences, homes, material things in the place of God. And when we do that, we. We shift our eyesight from. From, like focusing on the giver of gifts, right? Like, he's always blessing us with gifts, with beauty, with opportunities, with love, like, that's the giver of gifts. We shift our eyesight from the giver to the gift. And if you think of opening your arm, like, stretch your arms forward and open the palm of your hand and. And keep it open. When you live in surrender, when you live open and receptive to the plans of God for you, and you allow the Holy Spirit to take over, you live with your Hands open. I'm gonna talk about this more. When we speak about surrender. And when you do that, he deposits the gifts and the blessings in your palms. But what we do is we clench our fist and we're like, mine, this is my daughter. Keep her with me. This is what I want. And when you clench your fist and you attach to something that the giver of gift has given you, you forget. You lose track, you lose focus of he who is the one and only thing persons being experience that we need in our lives. That's it. That's all we need. So I digress. Coming back to my mom's words, Betsy, prayer does not change God's mind. Prayer changes you. I remembered that when Phofi died, as soon as I found her in the pool, and I clenched her against my chest and brought her to the edge of the pool, and I. And I gave her cpr. As soon as my friend came to, who's a doctor, came to give her cpr, attend to her, the ambulance, as soon as somebody came to take care of her, I just started praying. When there was nothing else that I could do, I just prayed and prayed, and I begged God, like, God, make her heart beat. At some point. I was praying for her heart beat to beat when we were in the hospital. And if you want to hear more about that story, just go to the first episode. And when I was. When I was praying, I went from telling God what to do. God, like, I was bargaining with God, like, God, I will. I'll make you these promises if you save her. Like, you know, I'm raising her for you, God, like, please save her. I know you're going to save her. And I just. I was telling him what to do. And at some point, I. I remember, like, asking him to participate in my prayer. And I said, like, can you give me something that I can repeat in prayer so I don't have to think about this? And his word popped up, right? Like scripture is the living word of God. And what came to me was, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And at that moment, I was like, no, I thought that was lack of faith, because of course he's going to save her. He's going to do what I told him to do because I have faith. That's what I thought. But that was his way of saying, this is my will. It's that you can do all things through Christ who strengthens you, and you're going to be okay, which is why you want to save her, right? And then so I heard that. I thought it was lack of faith. And then I saw that her heart wasn't beating. I saw the monitor with the flatline, and I started praying. I'm like, okay. It says in the Bible, it says to be specific in your prayer and just tell God, even though he knows everything that's in your heart, just tell Him. Speak to Him. And I just prayed for her heart to beat. And at that moment, I also had another revelation in which I saw my sister. My sister was born well, and she got sick when she was nine months. She had rubella and a very high fever and convulsions. And it all evolved into her getting into a coma, having brain damage. And her heart did beat. My sister was supposed to die, and God did save her. He did make her heart beat. But she wasn't the girl that my parents once knew. She had brain damage, so she had severe mental retardation and epilepsy and all sorts of conditions. And I remember thinking that and realizing that that could be Fofi's story, too. And I was like, it's okay. It's okay. I don't care. I love her. I'll love her no matter what. And I will say, for a moment, I understood in my own core what my parents have been saying for 50 years. They've always been saying that my sister is a blessing from God. And I never understood why they thought that her condition was a blessing. And at that moment, I was like, oh, it's because God made her heart beat, and that is a blessing. So then I'm like, it's okay. It's okay. I'll just love her and protect her no matter what. And then as I continued to pray, since I had opened up my heart to the prayer that God wanted me to pray by consenting to his presence and action, by inviting him to tell me a prayer that I could repeat. I guess that was my way of opening the door and saying, come right in. Connect with me. Make your will mine. At some point, without intending to say this, my prayer was, make her heart beat, Lord. Make her heart beat, but let it be youe will. I added that. And I remember thinking, where did that come from? Like, you know, I was scared of even saying that out loud. Like, but I. But it came out of me. The. My. The indwelling God, the Holy Spirit, the God inside of me said, but let it be your will. Very much like Jesus in Gethsemane. Like, let this cup pass by me, but let it be your will. And at that moment, I fell on my knee, fell on my knees next to the stretcher where my daughter's body laid still. And I started singing. And again, I did not intend to do this. I didn't plan. I'm going to sing right now. In fact, you'd be scared if you heard me sing. But I just. I started singing a song of hope that I used as a lullaby for my. For my girls. I really cannot sing. It's. It's not good. But this particular song, I sound pretty decent. And it's called Cantico Celeste. It's in Spanish, and it's just a song of hope. And I started singing that to myself, and it almost felt like it wasn't me singing. To me, it was an angel. It was Jesus himself. I don't even know how to explain it, but it was. Someone was consoling me and letting me know that the night will pass with its, like, nightmare, right? Like, those are part of the lyrics in the song. Like, that this night will pass with the nightmare and the darkness, and soon the. The sun will shine through in your heart. And I. And at that moment, I knew the doctors hadn't given up. They were still working on saving my daughter. But. But I knew. And I remember my husband being like, baby, they're trying something new. This is going to work, baby. Don't worry. This is going to work. And me feeling so much pain for him because I'm like, he doesn't know yet. But I knew. And in that knowing, there was a weird sense of peace and acceptance. And when I thought about what my mom said and I connected it to that night, I understood. I started praying with ego, with this sense of authority over God, like, telling him what to do. God, do this, because I'm saving her for you and I deserve it, and I've earned it. And I'm a woman of faith. And you said it. We have faith as small as a mustard seed. Then we're going to be okay. We can move mountains. Like, I went in with the ego, not with the spirit. But I opened the door. That's what prayer does. It opens the door. It lets God know that he has permission to come in. Because God is a gentleman. He gave you free will. He's not going to come in unless you let him. So he came in. And then he started changing me and my prayer in a span of hours, which felt like an eternity, and yet seconds in that span of the eternal now that limitless now, he took me from God. This is what you need to do to God. Can you give Me youe life giving word or something that I can repeat so that I can pray like you to God. This is what I want, you know my heart and this is what I want. But let it be youe will to acceptance to Let me just sing. Let me, Let me worship youp while you do youo thing. So prayer my friend, is not to change God's mind. It's to change you. And you may ask like okay, okay, so prayer is consenting to God's presence and action within you. But like okay, why pray? Or how do I pray? Like why pray if prayer is not to convince Him? And I would say that the answer to that is you pray to convince yourself that God's with you, that you can trust you, that you can trust him. And that whatever he decides is always going to be for the good of those who love Him. And I know you love Him. Quick interruption just to let you know that the Betsy Bot is finally here. That is the AI version of me. It has all my thoughts, all my intellectual property, anything you can imagine. So, so if you'd like to process something, if you want some support, you don't have to wait for me. You also don't have to pay a whole lot of money to see me privately. You get to have me at the tip of your fingers on your phone by downloading the Better with Betsy app. So go to your Apple Store or your Google Play and download Better with Betsy app and you'll have access to Betsy Bot. Let's go back to the episode. So everything is going to be for your well being. Now when we think of prayer we usually think like talking to God, asking Him what we want, reading scripture. And I want to offer a different perspective on prayer that I hope will bless you. I don't think prayer is just talking to God. I think prayer is anything we do to connect with God, anything we do to love like God and anything we do to serve and glorify Him. So prayer is indeed the times that we spend talking to him and listening to him through scripture. The time that we spend praying the rosary. It's October and it's the month of the rosary. And I want to give a shout out to our Blessed Mother because she. I know that especially like for our non denominational Christians, like she has a really bad rep like or we have, we as Catholics have a really bad rep because like, because many people believe that we worship Mary. And I just want to mention here that we don't worship Mary in our, in our faith. Mary is our mother because Behold your mother and behold your son. Like when she was speaking to her, to his disciple, like, Mary, like, he gave us Mary, right? Like we are the disciple and he gave us Mary as our mom. And the reason he gave her to us is because she was so special, so faithful and. And she knew, like, she, she was the one who knew her son the best and the most. So she is the way to Jesus, right? Like, she's not like she is. She has like the, the finger, the blueprint to get us to her son the fastest. And she has hookups with him, right? So she's just an intercessor is what we call her. Because if you connect more with a mother figure, you can come to her and she'll be like, don't worry, I got you. I'm going to talk to Jesus and make sure that he hooks you up and he's. And you feel him. Sometimes we connect more with mom, we connect more with dad, we connect more with a sibling, the older sibling. So then we go to them so that they go to the. It's like, you know, my daughter, every time she wants for my husband to give her permission with something having to do with her boyfriend, she comes to me and then I go to my husband. But she has a beautiful, intimate relationship with my husband too. So for like, if, if you have that feeling towards Catholics in general or like you think that we worship Mary, I just want to invite you to, to consider looking at it from the perspective of there's someone that you love and you feel comfortable talking to him or her, and you may just share with that person something that you want to convey to someone else and ask that they relay the message or that they help you out. That's like her blessed mother. And besides, she's a great role model. She, like, she was so faithful. I remember when I lost Fofi, I was like, I wish she would have written a book. And then I realized, like, wait, I have the book. It's the Bible. And like, the Bible describes her as faithful, obedient, loving. Like, imagine seeing your son be crucified and abused and still loving God. Like, your son is doing that for God and you still love God. Like, I don't know. He wouldn't be my favorite. So I would look at her and I'd be like, oh, show me the way. Show me. And she does with her example. So I'm very Christ centered. You probably have figured that out. So I have been on a mission to connect more with our blessed Mother Mary and get to know her More so that I can see Jesus through her eyes and find different ways of connecting with Him. And I don't know, if you ask me about my kids, I'm gonna. There's nobody who's gonna speak more highly about my kids than myself. So I imagine Mary is like that. And I invite you to consider, if you've always felt like icky about this topic, to understand that it's just. It's just love. It's just love for Mary, for a mother. It's not worship. There's nobody in taking the place of Jesus. It's just she has the blueprint and I want it. I want the shortcut to Jesus. Anyhow, I digress. What I wanted to tell you is that when, like there are different forms of prayer, there is praying the rosary, there is reading scripture, there's talking to God, there's listening to the word of God, there's attending church, there's singing, worship. But prayer is also cooking, doing the dishes, picking up the kids, cleaning the house. Anything you do out of love, with love for somebody you love is a form of prayer. We can be praying all day. If you go to work and you show up with intention, you do the tasks, the filing, the writing of the emails, whatever you do, you. You do it with love and shining bright so that you may glorify God with your God given gifts. My friend, you're praying. You can be praying all day. And what happens when you pray all day is you gain peace. You change your mind. And ultimately changing your mind means that your will becomes ever so close to the will of God. There's a scripture in Isaiah that I love that says, for my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are my ways your ways, declares the Lord, as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my thoughts and my ways above yours. And essentially what that scripture says is, my friend, your thoughts, what you think is the best plan and what you think is best for you and your daughter or your. Your children or your marriage or your loved ones or your condition, your health, like whatever you're going through, what you think is best for you and your loved ones is different from your thoughts. And his thoughts are different. Your ways and his ways are different. Unless you pray. When you pray, you consent to God's presence and action within you and you allow him to come in and mold and transform your thoughts so that his will becomes what your will is. And I will say that when you do that, you experience acceptance because now you accept his will because it's yours. It's your Will, too. So it's easy. Acceptance makes everything easy. It also becomes peace. Because now you're not fighting reality. You're not fighting what you think it's supposed to be. You're not resisting reality. Because, by the way, every time we fight against reality, we lose. Try being in traffic and screaming at the person in front of you. You can scream all you want, but traffic is not going to go away because you're screaming. That's just going to affect you emotionally. When you accept what is as is through prayer, through consenting to his presence and action, to letting his will become yours. When you do that, you experience the peace that surpasses all understanding. And that, my friend, is the best freaking feeling ever. Something else that you should know is that when you pray while wanting God to do what you want God to do, you can experience that peace even if the situation hasn't been resolved. Actually, just today, I met with someone who's going through a divorce. And I learned about it for the first time. She's been in the process for many months. And I was so, like, it just hurt my heart to imagine what she's been going through. I've never been through a divorce, but I have, like, so much compassion for it because it's loss, and I know loss all too well. So I was like. I was, like, hurting for her. And she was like, I'm okay. I'm at peace. And I told her, I know. I can see it. And then she was sharing details, and she's like, I've been praying so much. I'm like, there it is. That's where the peace came from. She doesn't know what's going to happen with her and her family financially if she has to move from her house. Like, she doesn't know anything. Nothing, nada, niente. And yet she has peace. There's so much uncertainty in her life, and she has peace because she's been in prayer. So I ask you, what are you praying for these days? And how are you praying? Are you telling God what to do? Or are you surrendering to his will, to his ways, to his thoughts, so that they may become yours? Are you asking him, like, why God? Why me? Like, why do you allow this? Or are you getting curious and wondering, I wonder what he's trying to teach me with this, or how he's trying to bless me, or what kinds of experiences he's allowing to, like, nurture me and prepare me, train me for that which is to come so that I can really experience my greatness. Because always Always think of any person. Like, think of your hero, the person that you admire the most, whomever you admire and respect and trust most, you respect, trust, and admire because they've been through pain and they've come out stronger on the other side. Their pain became their purpose, their greatness. My pain, my greatest pain. Losing Fofi has become the most incredible blessing God's ever given me. Losing her has been excruciating. But the experience of having lost her and all the lessons that I acquired from it and the peace and the connection to God that I now embody, I wouldn't want to change that for the world. So when people ask me, do you wish she didn't have to die? I say, yes, and I wish she didn't die. But I wish I still had what I had because she went to heaven. So we get to trust, and we do that through prayer. And by the way, I mentioned, you know, I mentioned prayer as an action, as a daily task, as anything that we do to love and connect and glorify God. I mentioned prayer as what we think of, like talking to him, listening to him, scripture, rosaries, like all these things. But I think the most powerful form of prayer, which we'll talk about in the next episode, is through silence. Through silence, silence, solitude, and stillness. And if you think about it, every time Jesus was gonna pray, he would like. He would like, go into a solitary place in the mountain and just go alone and spend that time in silence and connect with God. So, my friend, I invite you to consider praying with more intention when you're doing anything and everything in your day, like bring God into your job, bring him into your workout, get one more rep for him and out of love to him, bring it into the sacrifices that you do, bring it into your fasting so that you can remind your spirit, that you remind yourself that your spirit is stronger than your body. Just bring it into your silence. Just bring him into everything you do. And I promise you that by including him and by loving on him and staying connected to him, your life will be better. I cannot wait to tell you more the rest of the month about different kinds of prayer. I want to talk about silence. I want to talk to you about surrender. So stay tuned. And if you'd like to pray and work out with me during the month of the rosary, I actually am offering Soul cord today at 8:30 in the morning. So if you listen to this podcast super early, you can come go to Soulcourt with Betsy.com s o u l c o r e with Betsy.com you can register there or, or you can come next Tuesday to my other class. And Sokor is a way of praying the rosary while working out. So you're praying with your entire being, your entire body. And then we reflect on the life of Jesus in each mystery. It's like so beautiful, such a beautiful practice. And it's a form of prayer, too. So if you'd like to join us, we'd love to have you. And I just ask that you start thinking about a prayer routine or a daily practice that you would like to integrate into your life, to stay connected and to inevitably experience the peace that surpasses all understanding. I love you. Bye. That's it for today's episode. I loved, loved, loved spending this time with you. So thank you. Thank you for joining me. If somebody came to mind while you were listening, bless them with this episode, send it to them. And if you may, please subscribe and leave a review. Those are really helpful to help us spread the message. And if you want to grow in faith and wisdom, join me@faithandgrowth.com thank you for spending this time with me. Love you. Bye.