How challenging is it to bring my whole self to God in prayer? Let me count the ways: The blocks I set up for myself. The presumption that my issues aren’t worthy enough for God to be concerned with. The feeling that if I were better able to hold things together, I could manage on my own and wouldn’t have to bother God about it all. And yet everything in my life, every tiny, gnawing care, is of concern to God. How do I know that?

I go back to the Gospel. Jesus said it, and what he said impressed the evangelist enough to write it down: Ask. Knock. Didn’t receive an answer? The door didn’t open? I ask for my ears to be cleared and my faculty of understanding to be widened. Wait, and an answer comes, a door opens, in God’s time and in God’s mysterious way.