I was thinking about the word “prayer” today when I passed by the creek. I paused and felt Jesus smile in an old familiar way.

When I was a child, I had a secret place where no one could find me. I dragged my little sled down the back lane, across the street and down into the gulley where the creek ran. That was in the days when kids could roam more freely. We just had to be home before supper – or before hypothermia set in.

In the summer the soggy earth at the bottom of the valley sucked the shoes right off your feet, but in the winter the mounds of bent grass and hummocks of earth proved solid under my feet. The sled gave me a dry place to sit among the bulrushes. Sometimes the water bubbled under the ice and sometimes it flowed through open channels. No one could see me. I sat quietly for hours, telling Jesus things I couldn’t tell anybody else.

I didn’t know I was praying. I thought prayer involved reciting rhymes at the dinner table, or at bedtime or making speeches to God in a voice loud enough for Him to hear in case he was sitting in the back row like the other people who hoped to make a fast getaway. I thought silent prayer happened at those times when the preacher told everyone to be quiet and think about what horrible sinners they were and how much they had disappointed God. Then he told us to apologize and promise to never do it again –knowing we would, because we were, as was mentioned frequently, horrible sinners with “desperately wicked hearts.”

I was afraid of that god. I assumed he was like my grandfather and always angry with me for making noises and messes. I didn’t talk to that god when I was down in the gully, but I could talk to Jesus, because he was more like a brother.

Most of the time I don’t think I said anything. I sat in my secret place and listened to the crows or the ga-bloop sound of the water trying to break free from the ice. I didn’t know that sitting still, and saying nothing, just being, was prayer.

We learn to know the Saviour in the secret place. But he is not limited to that place. The corporate knowledge of his presence is also important. Prayers in agreement with other believers are powerful. Corporate prayer is different.

As an adult I have difficulty praying extemporaneous prayers in public. I try to become invisible when someone asks “Who wants to open in prayer?” My friends will tell you I have no problem speaking in front of people but praying is different. Jesus showed me what the father was really like, so I’m not afraid of him anymore, and once I recognized Holy Spirit I love his presence. It’s the other people in the room that make me uncomfortable.

Once, a person who I’m sure was trying to be encouraging, told me she thought I had prayed “some good prayers” at our regular prayer meetings, but suggested I pay attention to a couple of star intercessors and study their presentation. I began to wonder if they were going to hold up cards with scores on them. Technique: 4.9 Artistic Impression: 3.2

I didn’t stay.

You see, when I pray I am like that kid in the gully just talking with Jesus – if that kid were naked and without protective walls. I have to be completely transparent in the presence of God because he knows everything anyway, and really, who am I fooling?

I stammer in front of people. I’m not sure they’re as accepting as he is. I can let my guard down for a while, but my hand still holds the rope and pulley that whip it up pretty fast again. I’m working with being okay with what people think and staying focused on God and allowing the Holy Spirit in me to connect with the Holy Spirit in them. Unity in the Spirit doesn’t keep score, see prayer as “work,” or seek its own agenda. Unity in the Spirit means the Spirit leads in adoration and decides the priority of needs to bring to our relentlessly kind Abba — Father.

I’m thankful for trustworthy friends who are teaching me that where two or three are gathered, there is Jesus in the midst. He is the one we are looking to. Our hearts are centered on him.

But I still meet him in the secret place wherever that might be now. I don’t always remember, but I still need to withdraw from the noise and rapid pace of life to sit still in the quiet with him. Today he again met with me down by the creek, in the snow, just like in the old days.