How much faith can I summon for you? And how much for myself?

All things are possible. God is a healer. Hold tight to your faith. Just believe. Those are the words I have for you. When you ask for prayer, I go to God. I believe He can do anything. And that He will. Absolutely.

But I have trouble finding words for myself sometimes. Except for some ugly, insidious whispers: You are not enough. You don’t deserve what you want. You haven’t been faithful enough. You haven’t trusted Him enough. He’s not going to come through for you, so don’t get your hopes up.

It’s a form of self-flagellation at its worst. Beating myself up and living in the assurance that because of all of my failures, God, too, will fail. Or, at the very least, will fail to act. It’s a cruel torture that leaves a mark as surely as a whip would do.

I’ve been worried the past couple weeks because I found a lump in my breast. When I went for my mammogram, they didn’t do it, and instead scheduled me for a high-res, diagnostic ultrasound. So I had to wait. And I knew, I just knew, that the best thing I could hope for would be an assurance that “it’s probably nothing, but we need to do a biopsy.” I figured I’d have to schedule a procedure or two. And wait. And wait a little more.

Instead of leaning on God, I snapped at my husband. Criticized everything in sight. And tried and tried to pray, but all I could manage was, “Dear Lord,” before I’d stop. Stumped. Afraid. Before I’d dwell on the fact that Mom died of cancer. That my dad has cancer. That my sister’s best friend died from breast cancer. That one in eight women will get it. And that there’s no reason in the world why that should not be me.

As I sat in that waiting room, with the little pink shirt-gown on, while my technician prepared the machine, I couldn’t focus. I finally cried. And I was so afraid. Too afraid to really pray. So I tried to block out all of my thoughts with a simple melody. The melody to Hallelujah (the Jeremy Camp version, with You Never Let Go) came into my mind, and I thought-sang-prayed my modified lyrics, You are with me, Hallelujah. You are with me, Hallelujah…

And I let those words push away my fears. I let them drown out the what-ifs and oh-nos. It’s so easy to forget God is with us. That He. Is. Right. There. With. Us. No matter what we feel. No matter where we go. So I just kept repeating that chorus. Until I believed it. Felt it. Rested in it.

After the ultrasound, the radiologist assured me that there is nothing there. It’s normal breast tissue. No cyst, no tumor. Nothing. I’m fine. I still have trouble believing it, but am so relieved. Because I doubted, I am having trouble fully accepting that everything is OK. Here I go again, down that messed-up path.

But the situation got me thinking. I believe with all my heart in the power of prayer (so much so that I wrote a book about it). And if I still have my moments of doubt, if I still think that maybe God will come through for everyone else but not listen to me, then many of you probably feel that way, too.

What if, just for today, we let ourselves pray as though God is everything we want Him to be? Everything that we think He is or should be? What if we prayed full of belief? What if we stopped torturing ourselves for our failings? What if God shows up? What if this is the moment when everything will change?

What if I can summon as much faith for myself as I can summon for you?

What might happen then?