In this episode, I talk about the prayer of unity—what it means to practice oneness with God and others. From restoring broken relationships to learning how to love with patience, I share how unity requires honesty, humility, and a willingness to step into discomfort so that God’s love can shine through us.
In this episode of Chai Beauty, I share my reflections on Session Seven of the When You Pray Bible study, which focuses on unity—or oneness—in prayer. Unity is one of the hardest lessons to live out because it often requires sacrifice, pain, and patience. Drawing from scripture and personal experiences, I explore what it means to practice oneness with those around us, even when relationships feel complicated or strained.
I talk about the privilege of walking alongside others in their struggles, why forgiveness and feedback are so essential, and how God calls us to repair, restore, and live in harmony whenever possible.
We’ll explore:
Why unity requires sacrifice and even pain
The privilege of restoring and walking with others
Forgiveness, reconciliation, and harmony in relationships
Why friendships and family require slower, more careful conversations
How to balance strong boundaries with unconditional love
Redefining community and oneness in different seasons
💬 Question for You:
How are you actively participating with God to bring unity and oneness into your relationships?
Hi, I'm so happy you're here. Welcome to Chai Beauty, where I get to share my thoughts, my dreams, my aspirations, my visions for the future. And guess what? You get to be along for this journey because we are in this together.
If I be honest with you, unity is very hard. Um, and when I had to do this one, she simplifies it and saying, oneness, what is oneness? And again, I encourage you to buy this book. To really get your foundation and what you want to learn, what you take from this. And I'm gonna say one part that I didn't catch the first time.
She talked about it, but I definitely caught the second time and it says, it will be painful for me to restore you, but I am called to experience pain to restore you. And when I thought about. That message in particular to be called pain is actually very difficult for me because we technically don't want to be in pain, like we don't wanna be anywhere where our physical suffering or D discomfort can cause by illness or injury.
Careful efforts, great care, or even trouble. Causing mental and physical pain. So to think that in my last segment I said it's, it's an honor and a privilege to take care of somebody, but also it's an honor and a privilege to have pain on someone else's behalf because you have a sense of comradery or even a sense of.
I'm here and I've experienced a similar pain, not the same pain, but a similar. So I know I can get go there with you. I can lower myself and remember that time where I was in my life. And remember that, yes, I'm gonna pray for you, and yes, I'm gonna walk with you. And yes, I'm gonna encourage you, but sometimes it may not land well.
But I do know I am called to restore you. I'm called to connect with you. There are over gazillions and gazillions of people, right? And God chose you to connect with this person because there's an experience that you have gone through or will go through or even have the capacity to be in. To restore this person.
And when I think of the word pain, as I said, it's just a physical, emotional thing. But when I think of the definition of restore, it's bring back a previous, right, A practice accustomed or a situation, return to a formal condition, place or position repair. When I think of repair, I'm still reminded of the words my grandmother says that time heals all wounds because those wounds are being repaired.
Now, whether it is just in forgiveness and not reconciliation, or it's forgiveness in reconciliation, that's the beauty of life because again, God ask asks us to live in harmony if it's possible and possible requires you to sit back and say, if I. If I want to love this person, if I want to be one with this person, if I wanna care for this person, if I wanna we with this person, if I wanna enjoy sorrows with this person, whether they challenge me or not, how do I create harmony to let this person know that we are in this together, that I love them unconditional, even if I don't understand how.
To have an unconditional love. I've, I've read about it. I think I know, but I need help in that unity part. I need help in loving that person. I need help.
Oneness is not easy, and a prayer of unity is even harder. When we think about the nuances and the complexity of us as an individual, we think about the diversity of just your woman, your man, your feet, your female, you're male. You're on the spectrum. You're not on the spectrum. You live in the suburbs. You live in the hood.
You are a first gen. You're not a first gen you. You like what? In practicing oneness. Is not easy. It's why we have to go back to our foundation of just praying, asking for enlightenment. Her question again, like I said, like I'll never go through all of it because I really want you to read that book and have that time with the Lord yourself, but when we asked our ourself, how are you actively participating with the living God to bring oneness.
In the world. I had to think about that. Like how am I actively trying to serve God, not serve myself, because that's easy. I just honestly want money. I'm a very simple creature. Um, but she goes back in the beginning and said, what are some of the things you're praying for right now? And I say, I pray for wisdom stem.
I pray for good counsel and I pray for provisions and as we go. We ask ourselves, what is the big deal about oneness? I think about peace. I think not. I think I know that I want something that is tangible. I want something that makes me feel like I have a safe place to go. But we go through scripture with her and she enlightens us, but then she asks us at the end, how are you actively participating with the living God to bring Glynis into the world?
And then I think about going to church. And church was like, if you're a good listener, there are five things you need to ask. Five people some questions, right? And I was like, oh, okay. Like I don't know what people are gonna say. I don't know what they're going to do. Um, but that's a moment where I. So I was supposed to ask five people.
I asked six, somebody said, no thank you. Somebody was like, I only gave you the first part. But the second part challenges them, um, because you have to deal with the emotional side of it. And so I didn't get that second part. So I got a part of it. And, and I'm not gonna lie, I felt good about the feedback. I was like, oh, I'm doing really well.
And then there were some questions. Of course, like when people give you feedback, I had to ask clarifying questions. And one of the things I felt, excuse me, was at work, I'm really good at giving feedback. I'm really good at focusing on the work and telling somebody, this is how you improve, right? But then in my personal life, I can't do that.
And it's because my aunt says it's because I care. And I was like, is that really it? Like is is it because I care that I can't give feedback? I was like, no, I don't think so. So I'm sitting here and I'm thinking, and I'm praying and I go to church and it was like, just pray on everything. So I was like, Jesus, why do I not give feedback easily to family and friends as easily as I do as work?
Listening to him and saying that I have to go back to oneness and saying that the people and the friends good nor bad. They challenge you like they stretch you and. Not saying that work won't, but you have multiple layers with your friendships and they should feedback and the assertiveness and the the straightforwardness that I have at work isn't a place to have with your friends.
It's actually the opposite. You need to be slower to speak. Faster to apologize because you wanna do what Jesus would do. Like you still have strong boundaries and you still say yes or no to these things. However, they require a delicate conversation, but quicker and. What does that mean? That means when someone hurts you in a friendship, you can't easily throw them off or cut them.
You have to literally have a conversation, be like, Hey, when you said this, I don't think this was your intent, but I prayed about it. I'm trying to get over it, but I can't, so I have to call you and say, Hey, I just wanna have this conversation. And I do come in hot like everybody, I've gotten several feedback.
This is like when I started hot, usually I come in hot. It's because like my brain works super duper fast for me sometimes, and I just have to like say it quickly or I'm just gonna like let it fester. So I have to be like, and I think in our process oriented, so my thought process is usually like, this is what happened.
This is how I feel. This is what I need and here we are. And then I'd be like, cool. However, because people hurt my feelings and friendships and family, it takes time for me to even process that. My feelings are hurt. It might be a week before the incident has happened, and I'm currently in this season where I'm waiting, like praying about that.
But in those moments with my friends and family, I'm like, I'm always practicing. They are good human beings and they're doing the best that they can with what they have. So what does that look like for us? What does that look like? That we may have these disagreements, but I can still love on them. I can still intercede for them.
I can still talk to them, and also I could still grieve them when. In a season, they're not my person anymore. It's like, I've built this momentum, I built this energy with him, and they're no longer, they're no longer serving me well in this season 'cause God has something new for me. Um, and that requires sometimes putting somebody outside of the game and put them on the silence.
Why you figure it out. But I still want to have unity with them. I still wanna love on them. I still wanna encourage them. I still wanna check in on them, whether some people have quarterly check-in, some people have weekly check-in, some people have daily check-ins. It doesn't really matter as long as you're checking in and you're loving them and you're encouraging them and you're having conversations to say, Hey, in this season, like.
What you're asking of me, I can't do. And if you're honest with them, they have to do the work of being like, what this looks like and how do we work through this? Because that person doesn't have capacity anymore. But that also means that your community pieces and your role model behavior means you has to change.
You have to figure out what does your new community look like? What does your unity look like? What does your oneness look like?
Thank you. Thank you for all the support. I see it and I am growing mighty, and I have some news. I have done a lot of projects since I've been gone. I would like you to visit my website, subscribe to my Spotify. And go to my Patreon account. It's Chai OnCore Beauty, just like this podcast so you can get all the latest updates.
I can't wait to see you there because we are in this together, my friend. I look forward to seeing you.