Silent vs. spoken prayers

Tonight as I sat looking at my food I was filled with a sense of accomplishment, peace and thankfulness washing over me. Then I ate my food.

See, I am very bad at saying prayers over food. I am even worse at saying a conscious daily prayer but that doesn't mean I don't pray. My prayers are simply quieter, silent even. Occasionally I will have a prayer in my head and wordlessly send it out. More often my prayers are unspoken, simply a feeling that over takes, fills me with peace or thankfulness, and then moves away. These are my most powerful prayers.

Perhaps it is because I am (as I have previously stated) a bad Mormon but I feel as if, in private settings, explicit prayers are less sincere than the unspoken, unformatted, silent, implicit prayers that exist in the heart. An appreciation for the world. An awareness of yourself, your needs, and your desires. Prayers are about recognizing what you have been given, appreciating what you have, and acknowledging what there is left for you to do. These are the prayers of the heart that exist without the need of words.

Giving words to these feelings is fine, but I have never felt the need to do so. My life is my religion. My life is my prayer. There are times when certain aspects need to be formatted with words, pleas for help and some forms of thanksgiving, but most often the prayer is something that I feel inside of me as I interact with the world around me.

My faith is inclusive of all my life, not just the moments that I notice or that draw me. It is the simple things that ground me in the world and guide me to act in a Christ-like manner.

Just because someone doesn't pray aloud or in words, doesn't mean that they don't feel prayers in their lives.