The Oh S%$#! Prayer

Another prayer I use is what I affectionately know as the Oh Shit prayer. This is a type of prayer with the Oh Shit prayer holding down one end of a continuum. At the other end of the same spectrum is the Oh Please prayer. It is the same prayer, but with different degrees. In between is the What the Hell prayer.  With a range like that, you can imagine, this prayer is oft-used.

When I moved to Costa Rica with my then 7 year old daughter and the first day everything planned fell apart and had me thinking I’d made a huge life mistake, I was on my knees saying the Oh Shit prayer.

That’s another thing about this prayer, I’m on my knees and some times completely prostrate. By the way, Costa Rica turned out fabulous and was a huge life decision, no mistake.

The Oh Please prayer is similar with a greater degree of desperation. When due to a series of events, I was holding my grandfather as he died and in way over my head with nurses telling me they couldn’t help because they were on break: I was saying the Oh Please prayer. It is called this because it is used in such overwhelming circumstances that usually the only words I can manage are Oh Please, Oh Please.

The middle grade of this prayer type is the What the Hell prayer. I recently read that there are three types of business in the world: mine, other’s and God’s. The What the Hell prayer is when someone else’s business has me so appalled, I have to talk to God about it. When children we had been told we could adopt went back to their bio family after nearly a year with us: What the hell? When I hear divorced parents manipulate their children against the other parent: What the hell? When a vibrant high school senior wraps her car around a tree and dies. What the hell?

Basically, this prayer is used when life is way too big and I reach out to God for guidance, help and answers.