By Ansley Claire Strong
When I was a little girl learning about the character of God and the classic stories of the Bible for the first time, I would often imagine that my prayers were not just prayers, but letters of correspondence between me and the Lord.
These letters of mine were stored in a mailroom at the top of my head, and the mailroom was as I imagined God’s throne room in heaven to be: a magnificent room covered in clouds with a jewel-covered throne next to a prayer-carrying mailbox. Each letter had a heart-shaped stamp on the outside along with a big address on the front: “To: God, Love: Ansley Claire.”
Every time I would talk to God, I would imagine that my prayer went straight into the mailbox next to God’s throne as a letter, always sealed with a heart stamp and the same address. I would routinely see His face light up while He took in the words of my letter as I was praying it; His eyes were always the caring, soft eyes of a Father receiving a special letter from His beloved daughter.
Over time, the prayers I once prayed as letters in childlike faith became doubts that the Lord wasn’t actually receiving or hearing my prayers – that He had abandoned my mailroom. In reality, I had abandoned it myself. The mailroom vision that I formed to feel closer to my Father in prayer started to collect dust because I stopped praying.
In high school, I lost my childlike faith in favor of letting the enemy’s lies cloud my judgment. Control issues, people-pleasing, perfectionism, academic validation, and self-doubt plagued my mind constantly, and I was knee-deep in an identity crisis. When I desired for the world to take notice of me, I lost sight of the Lord; the same Lord who’d read my letters when I was a little girl is the same Lord who was still sitting next to that empty mailbox and waiting to be wanted.
That intimate image of God I had created in my head as a little girl is the same image the Lord used to bring me back into the faith after I had strayed; He reminded me of His good character and His desire for a relationship. Initially, I felt the dread of turning back to Jesus and praying because I wasn’t that same girl anymore. But He met me where I was to call me home and nudged me to reopen the mailroom.
“When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.” – Jonah 2:7.
Ansley Claire is a recent graduate of Madison-Ridgeland Academy and is attending The University of Mississippi as a freshman journalism major. She was also named an MCL 2024 Christian Leader of the Future. You can read more of her work on her blog, actuesdaymornings.substack.com.