5 Ways Prayer Has Helped Me Heal (and How the Hallow App Has Helped)
“Be still and know that I am God.”
-Psalm 46:10a
“Prayer consists of listening to God speak silently within us.”
- Robert Cardinal Sarah
The words “be still” and “silence” bring forth in my heart a great desire and a deep fear. Stillness and silence are essential for prayer. Both make me feel peace and calm in the depths of my soul. Both make me tremble and pull back in self-protection. Prayer, true prayer, is the time of greatest intimacy in our day. Prayer is about relationship and the basis of any relationship is trust and vulnerability.
As an adult child of divorce, I know my experience with all of these words- trust, peace, stillness, vulnerability- has been warped and twisted by my life experiences. When an essential foundation of your world, your parents’ marriage, is ripped from under your feet, at any age, it can’t help but leave you wounded and self-protective. Although there are many consequences that are far reaching, God wants to, and can, heal each and every one of our wounds. He can restore our bodies and souls and restore our trust and confidence in Him.
One of the primary ways God brings about our healing is through prayer. I said above that prayer is the time of greatest intimacy in our day. It is the time when we come to God and lay before Him our heart and our lives. For me, prayer has often also been a terrifying time because it is based on intimacy and trust. I have known for a long time now how essential prayer is to my life, but I have often run from the deeper aspects of prayer. I have chosen instead to fill my prayer time with my own thoughts or worries, to spend all of it journaling or to read spiritual works.
All of these are wonderful in their own right: God wants to hear my worries and thoughts, journaling helps me to process much of what I think and feel, and great spiritual works lift my mind and heart to God. The danger becomes when they consume all of my prayer life. Without realizing it, I have filled my prayer time with good things, yet ignored an even greater call to a time of simple intimacy with God, of being and receiving.
One small shift in my life took place about eight months ago when I first signed up for a free trial of the Hallow App. Hallow is a Catholic prayer and meditation app. One of the main quotes on their website is as follows:
“Contemplative prayer, in my opinion, is nothing else than an intimate sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with Him who we know loves us.”
- St. Teresa of Avila
This is a beautiful sentiment that plays right into all my fears and insecurities. “Intimate sharing.” Yes! Yikes!
Although it took a great leap of faith, using this app over the past months has helped solidify and intensify (in a good way) my prayer life! To be honest, I initially thought the idea of using an app to help me pray was ridiculous. Just over a year ago, I got rid of my smartphone because I found it too distracting and all consuming. In the face of such technology, and given the nature of my wounds and ways I have found to self-soothe, I seemed to be helpless to regulate my time. So the idea of turning to a form of technology to help me grow closer to God was almost laughable.
But God works in mysterious ways; His ways are not our ways.
I am going to share with you below five ways that the Hallow App has helped me along my healing journey. Even if you do not have the app or have no intention of using it, I encourage you to read on. Yes, I am going to talk about a specific app, but everything I have learned and come to cherish can be gleaned in any number of ways. All of the principles I will speak about are general with specific examples given from my own experience. Use them as you see fit. Don’t feel confined by my experiences or understanding. I pray that my words inspire in you a deeper desire for prayer, for intimacy with God.
Daily Exposure to God’s Word in Scripture
I have written before about the many voices which I have found inside myself , all vying for my heart and my attention (see here and here). I have found no better way to tune my ears to the Voice of Truth than to listen to the words of Scripture. The more I listen to God’s Word, the more healing and peace I find in my life. As the Catechism says: "In the sacred books, the Father who is in heaven comes lovingly to meet his children, and talks with them" (no. 104, emphasis added).
I use the Hallow App almost every morning in my prayer time to do Lectio Divina (an traditional meditative reading of Sacred Scripture) with the Gospel reading for the day, or with a Scripture verse from one of their “praylists”. I have found three amazing results from this: first, having someone else read the words of Scripture helps me to hear and receive them more deeply; second, I have come to see how differently (aka harshly) I imagine the tone of God’s words versus the kind and gentle way they’re spoken by the readers; thirdly, I have spent more time, led by the app, in silence with God’s word. All three of these developments have been healing to me because they have allowed God’s Word to penetrate my heart more deeply.
2. Structure for prayer time/consistency
I don’t know about you, but when I am afraid of something, my conscious and unconscious mind are both incredibly creative at finding ways to avoid that thing! As much as I want to pray and know I need to pray, I cannot deny the fact that I am afraid of the intimacy and vulnerability it requires on a daily basis! I have found in these types of situations one of the best ways to combat these fears is to take away as much resistance as possible to doing the action in question. By “resistance” I mean any little detail that might make it harder for me to get to the action in question. When it comes to prayer, some things that cause resistance for me have been finding a way to keep a consistent prayer time and feeling like I don’t know what to “do” during that time. Something that has helped with those two factors is the Hallow App. I can set a morning routine for a certain time in the app and when I feel lost or confused, I can rely on the app to offer me a variety of options, all of which guide me to a real, deep encounter with God’s love. Prayer is definitely not all about knowing when or what to pray about, but figuring out those two things can help overcome barriers for us to enter into prayer and allow God the space to act.
3. Exposure to different types of prayer
One of the most amazing things about being Catholic is the richness and variety of prayer available to us. All forms of prayer have as their goal the same thing: intimate union with God. But I love how God has revealed to us so many ways to reach the same goal. It has been healing for me to experience different forms of prayer (Lectio Divina, worship through music, silent prayer, the Jesus Prayers, meditation) because it has reminded me of all the ways God has provided us to reach Him and to grow closer to Him. He wants us to come to Him and has provided so many beautiful ways for us to do so!
4. Calling me to more silence/peace
Stillness and silence are two things I ran from for a long time in my life. They were scary and uncomfortable and I thought I could get along just fine without them. It was easy to make excuses. After all, I spend my days with three active and loud little boys, so of course it’s hard to come by silence! (Even as I write this post, they are watching, at a rather loud volume, the Disney cartoon Robin Hood…silence is a fickle friend in this house most days.) It’s so easy for me to fill my day with noise, even “good noise” in the form of podcasts about the faith or healing. But none of that can replace the time I need to be spending in silence with God and myself. Silence is scary because it’s scary to face what I am thinking and feeling, not to mention facing my fears about whether or not God will show up during my prayer time. Being able to set a time for silence and having a guide in the form of the Hallow prayer leader soothed my anxiety enough for me to be able to take baby steps in entering into silence.
5. Educating me in healing and the Faith
I have an undergraduate degree in theology, and head knowledge has always come easy for me. Not to mention, it’s much safer for knowledge of God to stay in my head rather than permeate my heart. Well, at least it feels safer! Keeping this barrier between my head and heart is a self-protection mechanism I developed as a child, but in reality, it is no longer serving me. What I have needed in my healing journey is for my head knowledge to reach to my heart. The Hallow Courses and the section on healing by Dr. Bob Schuchts and Sister Miriam have done wonders to ease me into this new way of being. The information is presented, but prayer prompts are also given so that it doesn’t just stay in my head! Despite what I thought at the beginning of my journey, I see now that healing is an ongoing process. God has provided innumerable pathways for my healing along this journey, both small and big. Having access to prayer and meditations to deepen my healing at every step of the journey is of paramount importanc
What you read above has been my experience so far with the Hallow App. I cannot wait to see what else God has in store for me, both through this app and through many other ways, as I continue this walk with Him. Here is my overall takeaway from this experience: It is essential for me to spend time every day in prayer and silence, listening to God’s Word so He can continue to heal my heart and make me whole. Whether or not you use the Hallow App, God wants to do this same work in your heart and in your life. He is patient and gentle as He waits for your ‘Yes.’ At all times in all places, He calls to each of us:
“Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light.” - Matthew 11:28-30
Stephanie is a wife and mother of 3 boys. She and her family live in PA. Her husband works for their local parish and she homeschools their boys. According to her eight year old, she enjoys reading, napping and watching The Chosen.
Reflection Questions for Small Groups or Individuals
If you use Hallow, how has it helped/enhanced/changed your prayer life?
What else would you add to this list?