When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him. Luke 15.20
Times are when you don’t pray. There’s been a lot going on, you’ve been on holiday, you’re not feeling up to it, you’re busy, stressed, anxious, overwhelmed. There are always excuses.
The longer you leave it the harder it is to go back. You feel ashamed, a failure. You fear coldness or anger or disinterest. Maybe God will have wandered off to get attention elsewhere.
This is how we operate. If people ignore you, you feel abandoned, betrayed, hurt, angry – or something is wrong with you. Maybe you will cold-shoulder or accuse them, or just go quiet and slip off the radar.
This is not how God operates. God is not insecure. God has always been here; it is you who have been absent.
You were with me, and I was not with you. Augustine
The point is that we are all always starting again. Starting again, again, is a very small (re)turn of attention, a minor course correction. It is like meditation: we get distracted, we come back: no pack-drill, no blame.
Give yourself a break. True friends do. God does.
Come home to yourself, to this body, breathe. Let yourself be seen, embraced, kissed.