My Prayer Strike is Over

Some of you will know that following my brother’s death from a brain tumour on Christmas Day 2022, I started a prayer strike and blogged about it each week for a year.

I literally refused to speak to God for over a year. I gave him the same silent treatment he gives so many of us. It cannot be wrong if he does it, can it?

After stopping the blogs, I said I would update you on any news, especially concerning any answered prayer and also wondered if I would be an atheist by the end of the year. I remain a believer.

There have been no answered prayers though. My strike was, as I explicitly said, partly an attempt to get God to answer my past prayers. It didn’t work, it seems only his manipulations are efficacious. Not only that, in many ways, things got even worse. There was very little of the promised comfort and very little of the promised peace following my brother’s death.

However, by 2024 I had started to say short angry prayers to God. I was effectively in some kind of talks. These were prayers in which I expressed my anger towards God for all he had allowed (I admit he had not caused it, but neither had he intervened).

I had been counselled to do so and I gave in and raged against God. Over the months I gave many sore and injured looks up to the sky and began to control my anger towards God. With the support of family and friends, who I thank, I re-entered talks.

So, I am now saying brief prayers, even though they are only for a couple of minutes a day. Occasionally saying grace before meals and things like that, a few seconds prayer in the morning and a few seconds before I sleep.

The strike is over and I am in talks with God.

I still refuse to take communion. It feels to me like my last bargaining chip and I’m happy to remain in the bargaining stage of grief. This will not change until all my prayers are answered satisfactorily.