Ever feel as if you are resistant to prayer? You want to pray and know you need to pray, and you even believe that God is there to answer your prayer, but when it comes down to actually doing it, you just don't feel like praying so you don't! When I have these feelings of resistance (and yes, I'll admit it), I am reminded of something helpful Henri Nouwen shared in his book With Open Hands. He writes about an elderly woman in a psychiatric hospital who clutches a small coin in her hand and won't let go of it in spite of on-going encouragement. Nouwen uses her clutched fist to represent everything in a person that just doesn't want to let go. It could be fear or resentment or anger or busy-ness or anything that keeps us from living before God with open hands. I am reminded that the original posture of prayer was the orans posture that had to do with open palms before God and not the close fisted approach we often have when someone suggests "we fold our hands." When my hands are open and extended, my body tells me to "Open up!" I become more receptive. Sometimes just opening our hands before God is a prayer. We don't have to use words. It's just the action of opening our lives and waiting to receive.