"In the midst of her tears came the thought, "When people are in danger, they ask God to save them;" and, slipping down upon her knees, she said her prayer as she had never said it before, for when human help seems gone we turn to Him as naturally as lost children cry to their father, and feel sure that he will hear and answer them."

I see arms and hands and tear-stained faces...
Reaching up but not quite touching the promised land...
I hear pleas and prayers and desperate graces,
Saying Oh Lord, please give us a helping hand...

HARRINGTON: And God hears your prayer, doesn't he? We hear Joy's getting better.
...
LEWIS: That's not why I pray, Harry. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I'm helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me, waking and sleeping. It doesn't change God, it changes me.

there is a God, there always has been. I see him here, in the eyes of the people in this [hospital] corridor of desperation. This is the real house of God, this is where those who have lost God will find Him... there is a God, there has to be, and now I will pray, I will pray that He will forgive that I have neglected Him all of these years, forgive that I have betrayed, lied, and sinned with impunity only to turn to Him now in my hour of need. I pray that He is as merciful, benevolent, and gracious as His book says He is.

For it is good to cleave to God, and to put our hopes in the Lord, so that, when we have exchanged this poor life for the kingdom of heaven, we may cry aloud: 'Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.' Assuredly, when we have found such wealth in heaven, we may well grieve to have sought after poor passing pleasures here on earth.

"Through steep, and sheer, and inaccessible,
through difficult and through impossible
places, they track him, and he flees the hunt
he has so often led, longing to cry out
to the pack behind him, "It's me! Actaeon!
Recognize your master!" But the words
betray him and the air resounds with baying.

...torn by their teeth, he makes
a sound no man would make and no stag either,
a cry that echoes through those well-know heights;
and kneeling like a supplicant at prayer,
he turns towards them pleading with his eyes,
as a man would with his hands."

Many cry to the Lord that they may win riches, that they may avoid losses; they cry that their family may be established, they ask for temporal happiness, for worldly dignities; and, lastly, they cry for bodily health, which is the patrimony of the poor. For these and suchlike things many cry to the Lord; hardly one cries for the Lord Himself! How easy it is for a man to desire all manner of things from the Lord and yet not desire the Lord Himself! As though the gift could be sweeter than the Giver!

Prayer is listening.

May the peace of God be with you,” she says, her voice low, “even in the midst of trouble.”
“Why would it?” I say softly, so no one else can hear. “After all I’ve done...”
“It isn’t about you,” she says. “It is a gift. You cannot earn it, or it ceases to be a gift.

placing the Ka’ba between my brows, the Bridgeover-Hell beneath my feet, Paradise to my right and Hell to my left, and the Angel of Death behind me, thinking all the while that this is my final Prayer. Then I stand between hope and fear.

For Longing

Blessed be the longing that brought you here
And quickens your soul with wonder.

May you have the courage to listen to the voice of desire
That disturbs you when you have settled for something safe.

May you have the wisdom to enter generously into your own unease
To discover the new direction your longing wants you to take.

May the forms of your belonging — in love, creativity, and friendship — Be equal to the grandeur and the call of your soul.

May the one you long for long for you.

May your dreams gradually reveal the destination of your desire.

May a secret Providence guide your thought and nurture your feeling.

May your mind inhabit life with the sureness with which your body inhabits the world.

May your heart never be haunted by ghost-structures of old damage.

May you come to accept your longing as divine urgency.

May you know the urgency with which God longs for you.

To pray is to dream in league with God, to envision His holy visions.

By then I wasn't just asking questions; I was being changed by them. I was being changed by my prayers, which dwindled down nearer and nearer to silence, which weren't confrontations with God but with the difficulty — in my own mind, or in the human lot — of knowing what or how to pray. Lying awake at night, I could feel myself being changed — into what, I had no idea.

Who knows, perhaps God is simply the search for God.