I Was Praying for Us While Learning to Find Myself

In 2024, I filled this journal with reminders about kindness, communication, gratitude, faith, and strength.

I wrote:

“The manner in which we speak is exceedingly important.”

I reminded myself that words matter. I wrote about listening instead of interrupting, giving positive affirmation, and focusing on the qualities we appreciate in another person.

I believed that communication could improve relationships. I believed a soft answer could turn away anger. I believed that if we learned how to listen, speak with care, and appreciate one another, love could become stronger.

And then I found this prayer, dated November 21, 2024:

Dear God,

In the past days, my husband and I have talked. We need your guidance. Allow us to learn and communicate with each other. Please help us be in your grace. Allow him to be honest, respectful, and loved. Allow me to let go of the past. In your holy name, I beg you to help us. Protect us. Amen.

Reading those words today touches me differently.

I was not praying for perfection. I was asking for honesty. Respect. Communication. Love. I was asking God to help me release the past because I believed our marriage could still be protected.

I was trying.

That matters to me now—not because trying guaranteed the outcome I wanted, but because these pages remind me that I did not walk away carelessly. I prayed. I reflected. I looked at myself. I searched for better ways to communicate, love, listen, and forgive.

But scattered among those lessons about relationships were messages that now feel as though they were written directly to me:

Breathe.

Believe in yourself.

You are the light of the world.

It doesn’t mean you’re weak because you’re having a hard time.

Never forget that it takes strength to struggle.

At the time, I may have thought I was gathering words that would help save a relationship. Looking back, perhaps some of those words were also preparing me to save myself.

What These Pages Mean to Me Today

I once believed that if I found the right words, showed enough patience, prayed sincerely, and focused on the good, everything would work out the way I hoped.

Today, I understand something deeper.

Communication requires two people willing to be honest. Respect must be mutual. Forgiveness cannot replace accountability. And prayer does not always preserve something in the form we expected—sometimes it gives us the strength to face the truth and walk through what comes next.

I do not feel ashamed of the woman who wrote this prayer.

I feel compassion for her.

She was doing what she knew how to do. She was holding on to faith, searching for answers, and trying to protect something she loved. She did not yet know how much strength she already possessed.

The woman writing those prayers was not weak.

She was becoming.

And although the answer did not arrive in the way she expected, God was still guiding her—back toward her voice, her worth, and herself.

Sometimes we pray for God to protect what we have. Sometimes His answer is to reveal what we need to see and give us the strength to begin again.

— SuzyAnna