Grace Is Not Google – You Can’t Just Search It, You Have to Live It
Sponsored
Catholic365 is sponsored by
Road to Purity
We often come to prayer like shoppers with a list.
God, I want this. Fix that. Change them. Heal me.
For a long time, that was me.
I was sure that if I prayed hard enough, used the right words, or cried enough tears, God would give me what I wanted.
But life humbled me.
Loss humbled me.
The prayers I prayed most desperately went unanswered in the way I hoped.
When my mom was seriously ill, I prayed she'd get better.
Instead, I stood at her grave.
It felt like God wasn’t listening.
Or worse, didn’t care.
For months, I couldn’t pray at all.
What was the point of words that went nowhere?
But silence can be its own teacher.
And in that silence, I learned something I never wanted to know:
Prayer is not about getting what you want.
It’s about meeting God exactly where you are.
It's not a transaction.
It’s trust.
It’s not controlling outcomes.
It’s surrendering them.
I started praying differently.
Not “Change this,” but “Change me.”
Not “Give me,” but “Guide me.”
Not “Why?” but “Be with me.”
Some days, surrender felt like defeat.
But slowly, it became freedom.
I didn’t have to fix everything.
I didn’t have to know everything.
I just had to be held.
Now, when I pray, I bring my longings and heartbreaks.
But I also bring my willingness to let God write the ending I can’t see.
If you're reading this and struggling with prayer, I want to tell you:
It’s okay to ask.
It’s okay to hope.
But the real grace is in letting go.
Because prayer isn’t a wish list.
It’s a surrender.
And surrender, though it feels like dying, is where resurrection begins.
In the quiet surrender of prayer, we meet the God who knows what we need before we ask.
A poet, author, and faith writer who believes words can heal what silence hides. My poetry collections — Inked Emotions, Scattered Feelings Stitched in Ink, and Love Beyond Loss — were born out of seasons of grief, solitude, and deep reflection.
Here on Catholic365, I’ve been humbled to share reflections that have reached hundreds of readers. I write not from a place of perfection, but from a longing to make sense of love, loss, and the quiet ways God speaks into our lives.
Whether it’s a poem, a story, or a small reflection, my hope is that you feel seen, encouraged, and gently reminded that faith isn’t always loud — sometimes it’s found in the waiting, the falling, the starting again.
You can find more of my work at https://about.me/anniedcosta
