I am up to my eyeballs in babies. Even my most baby-resistant friend has found herself unexpectedly expecting . . . and loving it. I'm enjoying the burst of babies, even so, I feel like my friends are lapping me.

Obviously, life is not a race. But I sometimes look at these amazing mothers and I wonder if I've failed.

This is why I pray. Prayer reminds me to hold still, to center, to peer down inside myself for once and see who I am, rather than frantically spinning my head around to see who everyone else is . . . using others as a gauge for who I should be.

The fact is, I don't want to be a mother now. I only want the life I have. And I only want to be the steady, self-assured woman I am when God lays Her hands on me.

Abigail Wurdeman is a founding member of the Prayables Pray Maker Council, freelance writer and editor. Abi lives in Los Angeles and can be reached at .

Listening

Your voice is like the rain
that gently hits the roof of my car.
It's a song asking me
to open a door
and exit.  Get up.  Move on.
Rise from there and laugh again.  

But all I want to do,
for just now,
is sit inside and listen.  

You make everything new again.

"HOW DOES PRAYER HELP YOU?"