To those who struggle to pray, Sister Tamara W. Runia, first counselor in the Young Women general presidency, had simple counsel: “Keep praying.”
Speaking to students around the world during a BYU–Pathway devotional broadcast on Friday, April 3, Sister Runia taught: “When it feels like heaven is silent, keep praying. And on those days when you wonder out loud, ‘Why even pray?’ may I offer this one reply — because Jesus Christ did. When He lived on this earth and returned as a resurrected being, He prayed to the Father as if it made all the difference. And it did. And it can for you and me. Let’s keep praying.”
Sister Runia shared of her and her husband being called as mission leaders in Australia. After six months, their two youngest children decided to return to Utah to finish high school.
As their daughter, Berkeley, prepared to leave Australia, Sister Runia suggested they set an alarm on their phones to remind them to connect every day — Sister Runia in the morning in Australia, and Berkeley in the afternoon after school in Utah.
“One morning as I was waiting for her to call, I remember thinking, ‘What if, when each of us left our heavenly home, we made a similar agreement with our Father in Heaven?’” said Sister Runia. “And imagine if we said, ‘We’re going to miss each other so much. Let’s set this up. We’ll talk every morning and evening through prayer so we can connect every day.’”
Like the story with her daughter, Sister Runia asked, “Are we connecting to our Father in Heaven every day?”
She then shared three truths she has learned about prayer: “Prayer is a form of work,” “God wants to be found,” and “prayer changes us.”
‘Prayer is a form of work’
How is prayer work? What does that look like? “I believe it may look like this: staying on our knees until our casual prayer turns into ‘mighty prayer.’ If I’m honest, this transformation happens when I’m about to finish and say ‘amen.’ But then I pause, and I think of the things that I don’t want to say. I think of the heavy things I’m carrying and the fear I don’t even want to admit to myself.”
As her heart softens and “breaks wide open,” said Sister Runia, “I talk with my Heavenly Father, who listens as if I’m the only one. When I pray with my whole heart, that becomes ‘mighty prayer.’”
Her prayers are now more of a real conversation, which includes listening and responding, Sister Runia said. “As I get up off my knees and begin my day, revelation continues to happen on the move, as I keep a prayer in my freshly broken, soft heart.”
‘God wants to be found’
A loving Heavenly Father truly desires for His children to seek and find Him. “But one thing is clear: He preserves our agency,” said Sister Runia. “He wants to help us with blessings He is already willing and wanting to give, but that are conditional on our asking for them.”
Through the process of prayer, individuals can search and come to know God. “That’s the deal. I believe He also wants our prayers to be a mirror through which we see ourselves as He sees us, as well as a window to see others as His children who need our help each day,” she said.
‘Prayer changes us’
Like the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi, Sister Runia said, “I too have prayed for ‘my people’ by day, and my eyes have watered my pillow by night” (see 2 Nephi 33:3).
Not all the circumstances she has prayed about have changed. “But I have changed and so has my relationship with my Father in Heaven,” Sister Runia noted.
Prayer has become like a reset button. “Every morning, I can step out of my time-bound world and see the big picture, becoming a faith-filled person again. It helps the universe fall back into place for me, especially when life seems so random and full of suffering.”
And sometimes, when there is no reprieve from her pain, the only answer has been the words “I know,” Sister Runia said, “which isn’t so much an answer as it is a guarantee from a loving God that I am not alone.”
