The seed of prayer is sown in heaven.
It pushes its stem toward the earth
and comes to grow there.
It produces an abundance of fruit.
Then, as it becomes seed once more,
it thrusts its way back to heaven.
~ Jukichi Yagi
Even when we bring the most difficult situations into prayer, the pain and resistance are in the situations, not in the prayer itself, as prayer is always true to itself. It discloses its own nature — that of a door a passageway to the Great Life of God. Prayer does not hold dismay, even though whatever we pray about may, for prayer move us off the place where we find ourselves and ushers us along — closer, at least — to the place we long to be.