prayer floods.

I pray like a Pentecostal in my soul.

I've been having these weird sorts of prayer moments. (Can I talk openly about prayer? Oh my gosh, I'm about to talk openly about prayer.) I can only describe them as prayer floods.

I'll be praying. God, You are so good. This, and that, and the other. Rocking it, rocking it. Yes, yes, save the Real Housewives.

And then, bam! My mouth goes silent. My soul explodes. And I hear a raging torrent of prayer rip through my heart, shouting and hopping and all sorts of groovy things, like Lindell, or Keene on the Wednesday nights that make me nervous.

These Pentecostals, they have a way of getting louder and louder throughout prayer--when I first came here, I derisively called it "praying for the hearing-impaired" (now I use the term lovingly)--until your ears start to hurt, and you wonder, "Will it look like I'm praying if I bend over and muffle the sound with my hands? Should I rock back and forth a little to seal the deal?" Related tip: If you like to fall asleep to sermons, as I do, make sure to turn the sound down on your headphones, or you will wake up with a headache, and the vague sense that someone has been shouting at you in your dreams.

But in these moments of mine, I hear my soul pray in the same way. It shouts to God. Crying out to Him, not in that lame way we have of using that term, but in truth, voraciously, with desperation.

I don't understand it. They're not my prayers. I mean, they must be, right? I am me. Me am I. I is Ashley. Ashley's me. That could be indefinitely silly.

So they're my prayers. They're deep, real, and raw. But somehow...I don't know. Do you know? That moment where God just takes over? It's like that. My prayer floods through my mind and soul, leaving only a desire for God so strong that I cannot stop praying. And in the midst of that, I find myself praying for a different kind of prayer--one that scares me, and confuses me, and makes me blush.

I can understand why those in secular camps will claim that Christianity is a form of insanity. To believe that the God, the Most High, is in intimate relation with us, is alive in our hearts, guiding prayer, and placing grace... Wow.

Yet, that is the case. I feel its truth in these prayers I can't explain. I've lived so long denying Him. I trusted in a reality unreal, and unreal even to my own heart. I created a lovely god, in place of the powerful God. But now, He makes His power known. Flooding torrentially through me, carving and smoothing, and cleaning. And praying.