..…oh, God, hear the words from my mouth’ three times, then rinse”
happy sabbath everypony, this is elyse coming back at ya through the digital wave space via this digital surfboard i’m riding on! the long awaited ocd tumblr blog is here xD
much like matthew h. watson of “SUPERMEGA” fame i, too, have what one might call obsessively compulsive behaviors constricted/fueled by bedridden anxieties, religious upbringings, and a series of unfortunate events. this…thing (hereto i shall now start referring to as “ocd” for convenience) brought me closer to God, while simultaneously making that relationship a lot more circumstantial. which, if you didn’t know, is an *unhealthy relationship*. one of the most unhealthy aspects of this having ocd with religion, among other things, is the practice of prayer. totally personally, the way my brain processes the concept of prayer is as follows:
use “thees and thous”, since that’s the most powerful language to use when talking to God…according to this book i found, as everyone has always spoken good king’s english, especially totally verifiable prophets.
repeat words or phrases that have been previously established within widely accepted prayers, which you have observed through life e.g. “no harm or accident will come to them”, and the like. because those are the sorts of prayers God has been proven to understand and grant, so failure for this part of the prayer is unlikely; even if God couldn’t accept the other parts of my prayer. at the very least “no harm accident will come to them” is a tried and true tactic. (as if prayer is a battlefield, and i strategize conversation with an all powerful; all loving being).
definitely-maybe try to have an actual conversation with your God, saying thank u & how much u love Them etc etc…but you’re probably not worthy of conversing with such a great thing—and so u put the actual possibility of a productive and truly nice prayer on hold since you might’ve opened your eyes or not knelt down properly—dropping your worthiness points with Heavenly Father :(
“In the Name of Jesus Christ, Amen!” (other variations of this prayer must include “Jesus Christ”, lest it return to sender).
sounds like a pretty fun time, right? also, JEHOVAH totally said that HE *really* wants u to go through this process about as many times a day as u can!
so…i may have felt quite guilty whenever i found myself not enjoying a prayer. and maybe just going to bed without thinking about my eternal existence for a night was alright, but that’s not a holy thought, so—what do i do?—i turn to prayer to make up for it…rinse and repeat for the rest of your life!
oh yeah…there is this other thing though, this ritual, that works 100% of the time in removing 100% of your sin. Jesus called it baptism, and we do the whole thing before you can get into any real trouble…
…oh, you dont remember that? huh…God really boinked us on this one didn’t They?
holy shit, you remember that book i found!? Jesus actually says there’s an official way to pray. and this one is out of the mouth of JC Himself, too, saying…(Mathew 6:7-14) “When you are praying, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do; for they think that they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Pray then in this way: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one.’ For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.” okay so…Jesus kinda knew what He was talking about…and there is sort of a word or phrase you can follow that guarantees 100% coverage of all possible scenarios your mind could ever conjure up; even the ones that you might have forgotten in some conversational prayer you might’ve had, leading some some sort of ocd…
of course, still pending the fact that you must forgive everybody or else God can’t forgive you, rendering the entire prayer invalid; nonetheless, 100% of this ocd stuff is covered by what might be the most valuable part of this scripture, to me, anyway……"for your Father knows what you need before you ask him”. i feel touched enough by how insane of an actual promise that is to actually believe it. and so, with the assumption that a God who must be all loving knows me pretty well, i tried it out. while i do not have a perfect memory, to the best of my current ability, i have made many amends and have forgiven all who wrong me. wherefore, i’m soooo worthy enough for this “Lord’s Prayer”.
its been about a month since i started frequently trying to memorize and attempt to use the lord’s prayer, and the results are interesting. perhaps this good feeling some might call “joy”, is due to being properly medicated for the first time, but isn’t that an act of God in its own way? in the end, whenever i feel like i need or should be praying, doing the lord’s prayer is a good starting point to actually remove enough of this ocd before considering if i actually need to do a big ol’ prayer. this has opened me up to have much more productive prayers, instead of praying, simply because of anxiety.
so what did we learn? ocd sucks so much ass, and religion rewards the absolute FUCK out of it. but doing the lord’s prayer has kind of helped a lot…so maybe try it out or find something like that for your own stupid lil’ head <3. super easy, right??
(maybe the weird rituals we learn are for the friends we find along the way)
