I remember, do you?  In the later years of their lives, my mother and her sisters loved to play what came to be a game among them.  One had a tremendous grasp of things that happened to all of them in childhood.  Another had a pretty good grip on what had happened in adulthood, their respective family lives, their jobs and places of employment.  The third wasn’t as quick to remember events, times and places, UNTIL prompted by the memories of the other two.  Then she would begin to call up details and    nuances that were not within the scope of the memories of the other two.  In this memory “game,” each had cause for humility and each had cause for joyful, playful pride.
 
      A strong and genuine awareness of our lives requires some measure of memory.  True awareness sees or hears the situations in which our lives are lived, and learns from them.  We can reach back within a period of time to see ourselves with others or even alone, able to see the ways in which we have or have not been our best selves.  Of course, there’s “the game.” Each of us is better at memories of long ago, times and events that are more recent or pealing back the layers once memories have been triggered.
 
      Prayer, to be as genuine, strong, and strengthening as it can be, is at best a daily experience.  There are layers aplenty, with gratitude, hope, remorse and repentance, intercession on behalf of others, praise, and  adoration (this list is not meant to be exclusive!).  Bringing an ever strengthening sense of awareness contributes to a developing prayer life.  Daily prayer gives us a chance to revisit the events of life close enough in time to see and hear them clearly – reaching to those events of the last 24 hours.  Grace helps us to know them, to learn from them, to find God in or through them!