Beloved, if ever there was a time for prayer, now is the time.

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At the time of this writing (Friday, November 7, 2025), we are on Day 38 of the government shutdown in America. As of Wednesday, this became the longest shutdown in American history, and it will go down as the most expensive/costly in our history, too. Sadly, by the time you read this, it could be Day 41 (or more)… and that is a terrifying reality.

While the American government is shut down, millions of Americans are going without the funds necessary to feed themselves and their families, thanks to the lapse in funding for SNAP. Over 1.3 million federal workers are either furloughed (unable to work and not getting paid) or excepted (essential and working daily without pay). Gas prices are experiencing their own rollercoaster ride and taking the price of our groceries with it. Jamaica is recovering from a deadly and devastating hurricane that left the island barely recognizable. And if there is room for anything else, many families are experiencing personal losses that make their load too hard to bear. Every piece of our being is pulling away one thread at a time, and as we face issue after issue, ads that remind us of the upcoming holiday season play with no regard to our struggles.

We have no holly, and we definitely aren’t jolly.

In fact, I resumed writing this piece about two hours after receiving some less-than-desirable news from my mother and flat-out asking God why it seems there is a cloud of doom over my family. In writing my words to God, I confessed that I am trying my hardest to dig myself out of the ditches that I had buried myself in before starting medication for my ADHD. I felt like God should have known how hard I was working because I was giving Him the glory through it all. Yet that news from my mother sent me crashing down and relegated me to a place of defeat that I had known all too well. In that moment, I felt like all of my dreams were just that- the idolizations of a child that would never come true. It seemed like for every step forward that I took, something was coming to knock me three steps back.

Yet here I sit, still fully committed to the belief that prayer changes things.

I wholeheartedly understand that I have a limited amount of control over what happens in my life. In fact, the words of the Serenity Prayer speak truth so beautiful, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things that I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.” I cannot control everything, and that which I cannot, I render to God in prayer.

I cannot control my mind’s desire to use food as an emotional coping mechanism.
So I deliver that desire to God in prayer.
I cannot control what happens to my family.
So I utter their needs to God in prayer.
I cannot control the weather in any environment.
So I ask for God’s protection in prayer.

Sweet friend, whatever you are going through- no matter how big or how small- take it all to God in prayer. The truth is, worrying about it will solve nothing (and this is coming from someone with a diagnosed anxiety disorder)… but handing it over to God, now that’ll do it!

Be blessed.