There is a hymn in my church called Secret Prayer. It has been a favorite of mine since the mission.  Here is a cool version by The Lower Lights:

I love the lyrics:

1. 3. When sailing on life’s stormy sea,
   ‘Mid billows of despair,
   ‘Tis solace to my soul to know
   God hears my secret prayer.
2. 4. When thorns are strewn along my path,
   And foes my feet ensnare,
   My Savior to my aid will come,
   If sought in secret prayer

Do you ever have moments where you learn He really is giving you aid and strength?  There are things which I struggle with that I literally can not share fully with anyone on this earth.  There are issues that everyone else thinks I have moved on from which still cause me great pain and sorrow.  For example, each time I think of my grandpa’s passing I miss him and wish he were here to love me.

I also think about the times when I was in the billows of despair and God was there for me in secret prayer.  Its interesting that in my novel my readers all were amazed at how much the character based on me prays.  If anything I lightened it from the actual time period.  Prayer and my friends were the only thing that kept me going in a time I just couldn’t shake the unhappiness away.

I had a cool experience this week.  One of the amazing things about open water swimming as a plus size girl is I have been able to open up the world of competitive athletics for many other girls in a variety of sports.  Girls can look at me and say ‘she looks like me, maybe I can do that too?’.

One such example is my friend Abby.  She saw some of my posts about swims and thought maybe she’d give it a try.

So she trained and lo and behold in September she rocked it having a time under 50 minutes.  She will have to correct me on the exact time.  We have kept in touch this year and I’ve been able to motivate others to enter races and swim.  Abby and I even met this summer.  Super fun.

Here we are with Etsuko

Then the time for her race was coming and I was having a stressful week thinking about Slam the Dam and whether I could make the time limit, not to mention returning home from a trip and getting caught up.  Its of doubt no surprise that I was up all night most nights this week.  (Including tonight I might add).

Eventually 2 am hit and still no sleep Thursday night.  What was bothering me?  Suddenly I had a moment of clarity and I knew I had to ‘help my friend Abby’ but what can a person do when there are barely 24 hours before the event?   On a whim I decided to see if there were florists that would do same day delivery where she lived.  (luckily she had given me her address at Christmas!).  Fortunately there was such a place and the flowers were delivered.

I kind of thought nothing of it until I got a tweet from Abby late last night.  It truly touched me.  Unbeknownst to me she’d had a terrible week and was about to give up on the race when the flowers came.

To all of you out there- you do have at least one friend who really cares.  I believe in the gifts of the spirit and one of mine is to believe, never doubting.  The other is to love people.  I seem to feel deeply attached to people on very small acquaintances and it has served me quite well in life.

I do have my secret pains that will never go away.  They will never be the same but I also have my secret prayers and loved one’s that are anxiously trying to answer those prayers on the Lords behalf.  They are listening to the spirit and acting upon it and I occasionally get that opportunity myself.  It is a transcendent moment in life.

There is an hour of peace and rest,

I hope to be constant in my secret prayers and always have his angels to assist me.

We are in His hands