Power in Prayer Writing by Tracy Williamson

Sometimes I struggle to know how to pray.  My thoughts are jumbled; I may feel anxious or full of hope. I may simply want to worship or need God to transform a particular situation.  How can I move from  vague yearnings to prayers that grip hold of God's amazing grace and love?
For me the answer is writing.  In my journal I jot down something I see in the news or experience in my daily life; I jot my sadness for a friend in trouble, my sense of inadequacy or my overflowing joy. Odd words, half expressed longings, glimpses of truth and pain ...and slowly what I feel and long for begins to emerge and then the sense of God's answer and suddenly I have my prayer, expressed and real.
Recently I found such a prayer written in an old journal.  I was staying in a city, very busy, crowds of people.  I felt a longing that I couldn't put a name to, so I got out the notebook and jotted down all that came to me. 
This is what emerged, it still moves me and compels me to pray again:


Can you reach into the city Lord
With so many passing by?
Can you touch the striving money makers?
Can you hear the weary sigh?
Of the people, so many people
Those in business dressed smart
But where is their joy?
And see the homeless, there yet  apart just like discarded toys.
Can you feed those in the city, Lord
With the bread that will satisfy?
Can you see the one in a mass of faces
Can you hear the lonely cry?
Of the people
So many people
Living together
But their lives are ripped apart.
Children crying, women dying -
Giving their bodies but not their hearts.
Can you still the craving of drug abusers
As they desperately seek a high?
Can you calm the dread of the lonely aged
Scorned and left high and dry?
By the people, too many people
To care about the one
Only the strongest will survive -
Those who have their lives together
Who cares about the other 95?
Yet you long to reach into the city Lord
For that is why you died
To pour your rest into striving hearts
To heed the weary sighs,
Of the people, so many people
Massed together,
Yet you came to save them all
In high office or on the streets
In the workplace jail or home -
Not one person can be exempt
From the passion of your call.
Help me gaze into the city Lord
With your understanding eyes.
To see the one in a mass of faces
To respond to the weary cries
With your love, Lord
So much love, Lord
Pouring from within your heart.
O Lord fill me with your power
In this day and in this hour
To bring your hope of a brand new start.
No one like you Lord
Whose love will never end,
You who warms the frozen heart
Who comes to be a friend.
No one like you Lord,
Who calls me to share a part
Of your passion to touch and mend
Every wounded heart.

Tracy Williamson is an author and speaker working together with the blind Gospel singer Marilyn Baker in the itinerant Christian music and teaching ministry MBM Trust.  www.mbm-ministries.org
Tracy shares a home with Marilyn in Kent together with Goldie, Tracy's Hearing Dog, and Saffie, Marilyn's Guide Dog.