preview

Mary Karr Research Paper

Decent Essays

When a child receives an emotional wound, it often creates an ‘infection’ that they must spend their lives overcoming and growing beyond. Mary Karr lived through a very difficult childhood and adolescence, and her reaction to it and attempts to escape from the pain caused a self-perpetuating cycle of pain and addiction in her life. Eventually, she realized that her dependency on alcohol was hurting her son and causing her to act like her mother, so she, reluctantly, turned to others and eventually the Lord for help. She learned to pray and submit instead of depend on herself and it radically changed her life. She never would have expected it when she was young, but over time praying became as necessary to her as breathing. Having come from a …show more content…

This made forming a relationship with the Lord difficult for her and it took her quite some time to begin to understand what it meant to surrender to Him. Even after her conversion she was still in the process of learning how to surrender and pray. She says, “I prefer to find God in circumstances I think up in advance, at home in my spare time-circumstances God will fulfill for me like a gumball machine when I put the penny of my prayer into it” (page 363). She was and still is on a journey in her relationship with Him and is still learning to know Him better. I too am still in the process of learning how to pray and surrender, and I am sure I always will be. It is very easy for me to place prayer in the category of something I do because I’m a Christian rather than because I want to spend time with the Lord and grow in Him. When I pray seriously and I open myself up to Him, I always feel a sense of relief afterward. I may not feel happier, after all prayer can reveal aspects of myself that I may not wish to face, but it always reminds me of God’s power and goodness and leaves me feeling closer to

Get Access