Your Prayers Are Heard

Sometimes our words don’t come out the way we want them to. Have you ever found yourself in the middle of a vibrant conversation and just as you are about to make a crucial point, you completely forgot the word you needed to use. The word you need can be right on the tip of your tongue but you just can’t get it out. Then at other times you find yourself with so many thoughts moving through your mind at once that trying to get them out in coherent speech is almost impossible. Not being able to get the right words out can be quite exasperating. 

Occasionally there are words that describe very specific things but get completely lost to history. The following terms were common in 1600-1800’s but have since disappeared from our dictionaries and our common vocabulary. Here are a few. 

Sluberdegullion – did you spend the weekend sprawled on the couch with no intention of moving? In the 1600s you’d be known as a sluberdegullion.

Ultracrepidarian - someone who gives their opinions on things they don’t know about.

Snollygoster - a 19th century American word for 'a dishonest or corrupt politician'. 

This week our school value is prayerfulness. Prayer is the act of communicating with God, whether out loud with others, or by ourselves in the silence of our mind. There are times when I have many things to say to God, and we have lengthy conversations around the state of the world, or a friend going through a rough time, or a big life decision I have to make. But then there have been other times when I go to talk to him and I’ve simply lost the words. I have no words to describe the situation I need help with, or even what help I need to ask for. Other times I have no words because I just don’t want to talk to Him right now… and honestly there are other times when I’ve just forgotten to talk to him. 

I’m really grateful though that God doesn’t only hear and act on the words that I say or my lack of words when I’ve lost them. The Bible tells us in Romans 8:26-27 that “If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves.”  

“Ugh” can be prayer. 
“Thanks” can be a prayer.
“Help” can be a prayer. 
Tears can be a prayer.
Silence can be a prayer.
Singing can be a prayer.
Listening can be a prayer.
-The Worship Project Australia

When I’ve lost the words, when I have no words, when I don’t want to put into words, when all there is are tears, or silence, or sighs, all of it is heard, understood, and felt deeply by God. Whatever is on your heart, whether you’ve got the words or you’ve lost them, your prayers are heard by God. 

Pr Tarenne Greenwood
Campus Ministries Team