"Dad.. Pray"

In the Thicket of My Worries, I Lost the Path to Prayer

By: Apostolic Fidelity

I’ve been calling myself a "born-again Catholic" lately. It feels like the right term. I didn't grow up with my nose buried in the Summa Theologica or debating the finer points of Council documents. Like a lot of us, I drifted for a while - or maybe I just coasted. But recently? Recently, I’ve been set on fire. I’ve "come home."

I’m devouring everything I can get my hands on. I’m up late reading the Church Fathers, tracing the beautiful, complex typologies of the Old Testament, and building a library of apologetics because I have this burning need to know why we believe what we believe. I’m glued to YouTube, catching every notification when Patristic Pillars or Sam Shamoun goes live. I sit there fascinated, watching apologetics debates for hours, seeing how iron sharpens iron, learning how to defend the faith against every objection.

I’m a student again - eager, zealous, maybe a little intense.

But I’m finding out that it’s one thing to watch a theological debate in a quiet room with a PC mouse, a Smartphone or a Tablet in your hand. It is an entirely different thing to live out that theology when the floor falls out from under you.

This week, the Lectionary gave us that famous verse from Matthew: "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

If I read that a month ago, I would have probably pulled up a commentary from St. John Chrysostom to analyze the Greek word for "rest." But God didn't want me to study the verse this week. He wanted me to survive it.

It started when my wife was hospitalized for her scheduled surgery.

If you’re a husband and you’ve ever sat in one of those plastic chairs next to a hospital bed, you know the feeling. It’s this terrible cocktail of fear, adrenaline, and helplessness. We’re wired to be the protectors, right? We’re supposed to be the protectors. So when your wife is sick and you can’t fix it, you feel like you’re failing.

I tried to overcompensate by fixing what I thought I could control. I wasn't praying; I was fighting a war with the hospital billing department. I was strategizing about money and insurance. But mostly, I was running away.

And it was a nightmare. Due to some clerical error, the insurance company had disclosed to the hospital that our coverage limit was only one-fourth of what it actually was. Every single day, the billing department was breathing down my neck. They kept telling me we were capped out, that we were out of funds.

For those first three nights, I wasn't seeking God's face. Honestly, I was just trying to numb the anxiety. I sat in that plastic chair and stupidly tried to distract myself with noise. I wasn't watching apologetics debates or learning from the Fathers like I usually do. Instead, I started binge-watching "Startup" on Netflix, trying to get lost in fictional tech drama so I didn't have to face the real-life drama right in front of me. When my eyes got tired of that, I switched over to YouTube and watched Mark Wiens eating street food in different countries, just desperate for any distraction that would stop me from looking at the IV drip next to me.

I was physically in the room with my wife, but spiritually? I was checking out. It was escapism, pure and simple.

The breaking point was the fourth night. I was exhausted, my eyes burning from too much screen time, when my phone buzzed. It was a message from home. One of our sons had come down with a sudden bout of indigestion. He was vomiting, he was hurting, he was scared, and he wanted his dad.

That broke me.

I looked at the text, then I looked at my wife still weak, nauseated and hooked up to her IV drips. The distractions didn't work anymore. Netflix couldn't fix this. YouTube couldn't fix this. I was trapped. I couldn't help her recovery easier, and I couldn't go home to rub my son's back. The "zealous Catholic student" vanished. I was just a scared dad. I felt the yoke of the world on my neck, suffocating me.

I was pacing the room, panic rising in my chest, when I heard her voice.

My wife. The one who was still just half awake. The one who was still weak.

She opened her eyes and I know that she knew I was spiralling. She knew I wasn't praying; she knew I was just coping. She saw the spiritual battle I was losing, and she ended it with two words.

She looked at me and whispered, "Dad, pray."

It wasn't a suggestion.

She said, "Stop worrying. Surrender it all to the Lord. He has us."

My sister came over and I left the hospital that night to run home and check on our son. Her words were echoing in the car the whole way. "Dad, pray."

When I got home, I tended to my boy, and then I sat down in the quiet hours to finally do what she asked. I put the phone away. No more Netflix. No more food vlogs. Just silence. I tried to surrender that heavy yoke I’d been dragging around.

And in that silence, my thoughts landed on the urn of my recently deceased brother.

I froze. I’ve looked at that urn a hundred times, but in my panic, I had forgotten what was written on it. Engraved right there on the vessel that holds his remains is a final testament to his life and our hope -were the very words from the Gospel today:

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest."

And then, another memory flooded back. It hit me like a physical wave. I remembered the very first dream I had of my brother just days after he passed away. It was so vivid. In that dream, he wasn't talking about sports or the weather. He was urgent. In his own voice, he kept telling me the same thing, over and over again:

"Keep praying. Keep praying. Keep praying."

I broke down.

It was like God was shouting at me through the silence. He was speaking through the Mass readings. He was speaking through every Gospel reading and devotional my wife and I do with our kids every night. He was speaking through my wife’s rebuke. And now, He was speaking through my brother - from the engraving on his urn to the memory of his voice in my dream. The message was inescapable: Why are you trying to distract yourself? Why are you running? The answer isn't in a TV show. it is found in Me.

I sat there in the quiet house, finally letting go. "Lord," I prayed, "I hear You. I’m just a beginner at this. I don't know what I'm doing. I tried to numb the pain, but it didn't work. I surrender. I’m taking this heavy yoke off my neck, and I’m giving it to You. You’re the Father. You handle it."

And you know what? He did.

The sky didn't open up, but the crushing weight in my chest vanished. And then, the practical stuff—the stuff I was so terrified of—started to resolve. My son’s stomach settled, and he slept and excitedly went to School in the Morning. My wife’s condition turned a corner, and she started healing and recovering properly.

And the insurance? That giant monster I had created in my head? The Lord took care of it. The coverage came through. The financial problem I had scripted never happened.

I’m still early in my journey. I have a lot of books left to read and a lot of debates left to watch. But this week taught me something no book or YouTube channel could. It taught me that God isn't found in the distraction; He is found in the surrender.

So, if you are sitting in your own version of that hospital chair today... if you are scrolling through your phone trying to drown out the noise of your own anxiety... please, stop.

Take a lesson from my brother. His earthly race is run, but his voice remains. Whether etched on an urn or whispered in a dream, his message is the wisdom of eternity: Keep praying. He knows now, fully, what we are still learning.

Take a lesson from my wife. In her moment of greatest physical weakness, she was spiritually stronger than I was. She didn't look for a distraction; she looked for her Savior. She taught me that true strength isn't about fixing the problem yourself; it's about knowing who the real Fixer is.

And finally, take a lesson from God Himself. He didn't rebuke me for my worry; He invited me to trade it in. He is waiting for you, not with a lecture, but with a yoke that is easy and a burden that is light.

Don't turn to Netflix. Don't turn to YouTube. Turn to the Father.

"Dad, pray."