A Prayer for the Ones Who Don’t Pray Anymore

I grew up believing prayers had to sound pretty.
Hands folded, eyes closed, voice softened like you were trying not to wake the saints.

But the older I get, the more I realize most real prayers don’t sound like devotion.
They sound like desperation.
Or exhaustion.
Or “God, seriously? Again?” said into your steering wheel at 11:47 p.m.

And some of us stopped praying a long time ago — not because we stopped needing help, but because we didn’t know who we were talking to anymore.

If that’s you, this one’s yours.

This is a prayer for the ones who don’t pray anymore —
the ones who walked out of the church and didn’t ask for the map back,
the ones who stitched together their own spirituality from scraps of trauma and tenderness,
the ones who still whisper “please” under their breath even though they don’t know who’s listening.

This is a prayer for the queer kids who were told their love made them unclean.
For the recovering addicts who clawed their way out of their own graves.
For the ones grieving a life they expected to have, and the ones grieving the person they used to be.

This is a prayer for the ones who survived family, church, culture, expectations —
the ones who carry the weight of a thousand unspoken apologies
but still wake up and try anyway.

And here’s the secret the holy books never told you:

Your breath counts as a prayer.
Your healing counts as a prayer.
Your survival counts as a prayer.
Your anger counts as a prayer.
Your silence counts as a prayer.
Your refusal to give up counts as a prayer.

The universe isn’t grading you on posture.
There’s no rubric.
No failing grade for leaving the sanctuary to save your sanity.

If anything, the basement is proof that holiness survives outside the walls.

There is sacredness in sitting with your grief without demanding it behave.
There is sacredness in choosing kindness in a world that taught you fear.
There is sacredness in every version of you that refused to die.
There is sacredness in the ones who keep living without certainty or permission.

So here’s my prayer for you —
not whispered to any god who abandoned you,
but spoken straight to the part of you that still wants something better:

May you find peace where once there was punishment.
May you find softness where once there was shame.
May you find meaning in the places you were told were empty.
May you find yourself again in the ruins.

And on the days you can’t pray, won’t pray, don’t know how to pray —
know this:

Your existence is enough.
Your survival is a psalm.
Your heart is still a holy thing, even if no one taught you how to hold it.

You are welcome here.
All of you.
Even the parts you don’t bless yet.

— Beverly, the saint who forgot the words but still found the light