Help Me Pray

Our Reverend asked us this week if prayer has become a lost art in the church. What a sad and disturbing question to hit home for me. So what is it that makes me lack in my prayer life? What stops me? What is that thing, that weird feeling, that indefinable restlessness, that thing that takes me away from spending time with my Father?

It’s an itch I can’t scratch.

It feels like I’m a puppet and someone up above me is teasing my strings.

It’s like having the word right on the tip of my tongue.

It’s like I’m a piece of metal and there are magnets in the walls, the floors, the ceilings, pulling me all over the place and letting me rest nowhere.

It’s distraction. A twitch, a tick, a fidget that makes me go elsewhere, everywhere, nowhere.

I hear Him call me to prayer. I am doing dishes, I am folding laundry, I am watching the morning news, I am doing absolutely nothing superior to the call of God to pray. This thought of prayer was not my bright idea but something God placed within me. I know this is more than just another thing to cross off of my to-do list each day. It is a privilege beyond privilege that God invites me into His presence to gain from Him.

So I finish this last dish. And then grab a cup of coffee. Then I remember I have to throw dinner in the crock-pot for tonight. My cell phone rings. God calls, softly. I answer the phone. I am drawn away.

Sometimes I am just sitting. There is nothing. The day has passed smoothly. My home is quiet. There is only me and my own conversations with myself. He invites me. I choose my own company. (WHY?!)

I enjoy reading theology. I read the Bible. I read books about prayer. I read about other people’s prayer lives. I write this article about prayer. I believe in prayer. I think about praying. I beat myself repeatedly with guilt for not praying enough. I spend all this time flopping around like a fish out of water. And God calls – Come. Take.

This awareness of the call to pray is in itself an answer to my prayers, please Jesus help me hear your voice, know your will, and listen to you! Blessing beyond blessing! So he answers my prayers by increasing my awareness of His presence, and in deep gratitude I totally lack the wherewithal to respond accordingly.

What a gracious God we serve! Can I say it again? The God of universe, who made the stars and the sun and the earth, who knows exactly how many hairs I have on my head, who tends to the flowers and the birds and the children and all the crazy moms out there like me, is inviting me to be with Him, and is inviting me to be fed on a meal which sustains beyond any substance I can find anywhere else on the planet. But here I am, doing something else, and although I may not say it directly, the truth is that what I really am saying is – hold on God, I have this important real life stuff to do over here before I can spend time with You .

Imagine treating your earthly best friend this way. Imagine looking that person in the eye and saying, “I know you want to spend time with me. I know the best thing in the world for me is to spend time with you. I drink deeply and gain much from our time together. But I completely lack the willingness and discipline to do so. I say that I love you and that you are the best friend I could ever know, but I simply cannot make myself spend time with you. It’s very strange really but it’s the way I am. Do you think you can help me want to hang out with you more?”

All I have to do is cooperate, really. And even that I can’t do without Him first making it possible. This leaves me, once again, begging before God. I’m left only able to take my inability to pray to Him in prayer, and ask for help. He lets me be the worst friend anyone could ever imagine. He hears me speak claims of love while ignoring his sweet voice inviting me to spend time with him, like trying to walk past a big bush of lilacs in the spring and pretend they don’t smell just wonderful and don’t you want to linger a little while? His Spirit convicts me of these things, and He softly calls, again and again.

The devil is tricky you see. It’s just like doing a lot of things that revolve around Jesus’ Church is not the same thing as knowing and seeking Jesus himself. JUST Jesus. Thinking about prayer and having good intentions to pray in some imagined future perfect time and place is not the same thing as praying and spending time in relationship with God. The devil lets me get oh-so-close to what I really need, but keeps me JUST outside of it. What a perfect place to be to keep me a lukewarm, sometimes burnt-out, largely ineffective disciple of Jesus Christ.

I want to know God. A lot of things satisfy my intellect, but I want to know God. I believe that the Bible says we were made specifically for the purpose of being in relationship with Him, and that the Cross of Jesus Christ has made it so that even in all our sin and brokenness, we can still seek out and find that purpose. And the more I seek, the more I find, and the more I find, the more I want to keep coming back for more. And God works all of that in me, even when I bounce around like a ping-pong ball, even when I lack the character to just STOP and cooperate. He WANTS to give me good things, despite myself. It’s not a law or rule issue, or a 15-minutes twice a day regimen issue. No, it’s a heart issue. What an awesome God!

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be open. Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!” Matthew 7:7-11

So my prayer this week is that God helps me to pray. Oh gift beyond gift that such a great God would ever invite one as me to pray, to eat and drink, to be healed and made whole! That such a great God would have such patience with my disregard and distraction, that such a great God would remain and be the wall which I push against until I’m tired enough to turn around and look at You! Where would I be if it all depended on me alone? I have no character or integrity to speak of apart from You. Lord give me the willingness to drop anything and everything as I become more aware of that still, small voice inviting me to you.

Jesus and Crocodile Tears

Little Theo usually goes to bed without a peep. I think he is so incredibly active all day that he finally just crashes. Tonight was an exception. He whined, he kicked, he screeched. Then he stood in the corner of his crib, facing the door, and howled while big crocodile tears ran down his face. Typically I just let him cry until he falls asleep. But tonight I gave in.

I open the door and, he squints at me when the light hits his face – cheeks red, eyes swollen. He throws his arms around my neck and I grab his blanket, heading to sit in the rocking chair in the corner of the bedroom. I open the blinds slightly, and he rests his head on my chest while we both watch the big, fat snowflakes fall outside in the light of the moon.

I pull the blanket around him and begin to hum. He is asleep in minutes, breathing steadily, heavy weight in my arms. I could put him right back in his crib, but I linger. Watching the snow fall, the soft light coming from the Mickey-Mouse night light, and the rare snuggles are just too good to miss.

My humming wanders from hymn to hymn, and my mind wanders too. I think of my dear friend who serves in the National Guard and flies out for Afghanistan tomorrow. I think of another dear friend whom I grew into adulthood with, who might be one of the strongest people I know, but also now has the challenge of being a single mom. I think of my dear sister and the time we got to spend together for the holidays – and I think of her husband who stayed in another city on the way home to be by the side of one of his dying parishioners. I think of another dear friend who adamantly denies Christ, and who can only associate “Christians” with the people who beat her within an inch of her life when she was a child. I think about all those things one only gets to think about in those brief, rare, moments of quiet reflection that are usually stolen away by the constant movement of life.

Lord, grant me more moments like these.

My heart is heavy for so many people in my life, some are close and some far away, some I know well and some I don’t know at all, some are in Christ but many are not. This is not something I ever experienced before I encountered Jesus. Back then, I could care about people, but only to a certain extent. With any care was also that underlying fear that I could get hurt by caring…and that fear always won out. I may have cared, but I suffered from a total lack of the kind of depth which makes you take action when you really care. Jesus has changed that for me, he has opened my heart and shown me how. Jesus wept. (John 11:35)

Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling, calling for you and for me

Softly, tenderly Jesus is calling, calling oh sinner come home

Come home, come home….ye who are weary come home

Little Theo stirs, yawning. My shirt is wet from his tears. As the snow gathers outside, I have some crocodile tears of my own. I am not sad without hope, but I know that it is right to be sad over what is sad. There is much in life which is not how God intended it. There are many problems in life that I cannot solve, but can only point to the Savior. Thank you Jesus, for showing me that it is right to care about people, to love people, to be sad over sin, to grieve for people, to go all the way there with people. Because they are YOUR people, and I know you are softly calling for them too.

Humble Pie

My husband was grumpy this weekend. Being his wife, I noticed. I asked if he was ok. I worry about him. He brushed me off, he is exhausted, his job really burns him out sometimes. Nothing major.

Me: “Well, I noticed you’re not in a great mood, and I just want you to be happy.”

Him: “Are you sure you don’t just want to be happy, and it’s easier for you to be happy when I’m happy too?”

(He does this thing where he says something without thinking, watches me closely for a reaction, sees my eyes cloud over, and quickly begins to laugh and say “I’m just messing around”. This was one of those times.)

I was livid. What a….(expletives galore). Does he think that just because HE is heartless it means that there’s no way I could just care about him because I see he’s down? Does he really think I’m that selfish? With all I do for him? REALLY? All of the laundry and the cooking and the cleaning and waking up all night every night with the baby and letting him take naps even though I’m exhausted too? I can’t believe I am a victim of such cruelty. Just because it takes him a WEEK to notice if I’m in a bad mood doesn’t mean I don’t notice when someone around me is down! I care! I really care! I have a big heart and I care and I love just like I’m supposed to!

After I was done being as mad as a hornet, I was terrified. I know enough to know that when something gets my blood boiling to that extent, I better look a little deeper to find out why it’s such a sore spot for me. So I was terrified because I knew there was some serious truth in what he said. It was like he took his finger, looked for that ONE button I was trying desperately to hide, found it, and pushed it 100 times like a little kid learning how to ring the doorbell for the first time. Oh no....he knows the truth!!!

I know that somehow, he was just kidding, and not thinking. He definitely didn’t mean to rip out any vital organs with his statement. He surely did not and still has not spent time thinking this over like I have. But none of that really matters, because he reminded me of something oh-so-important.

I’m a sinner, and I’m a mess. I still need that reminder. I still need that reminder all the time apparently, even when it comes in the form of a great, big, OUCH. How like the truth, right?

I want to be justified so badly. I want all the things I do to be enough. Enough for my husband, for my kids, for my friends, and for my Heavenly Father. My natural instincts tell me that I must earn the love of all of these by my own greatness, by keeping up the appearance of a true and pure heart and care for my fellow man, proved by all my good deeds.

This is a lie. God crush the liar in me, the masker, the Pharisee who keeps up appearances and blows the trumpet (even if only to my own ego) whenever I do a good deed.

The truth is that it’s messy. My primary role in my life right now is to nurture my family and my marriage. I do this because I want to, because this is what God has set before me, these are my gifts to take care of and my responsibilities to manage with His help. I want to do things for their health and well-being, I desire a marriage that honors God, I hope for a family that serves Him. I love them dearly.

But I’m still good old me! And that’s where the mess begins. I cook and clean and do laundry because it benefits my family, but also because it benefits me, and I hate a messy house. The boys in my house do NOT care if the beds are made, but I do it “for them”.

I do want my husband to be happy just because he’s my husband, but also because his unhappiness speaks to my inability to fix (control) everything around me. And yes, this reality does indeed affect my own happiness. Apparently I am that selfish. So I see, as I try to love God and love the people around me, that I do a lot of the right things for both right and wrong reasons. Again I’m reminded that I’m just not Jesus.

Sometimes it is scary to get this honest, because I would really rather live in the “I’m a good person” delusion. How comforting. How much more control I feel I have while in this delusion. The truth shatters my delusion of control and renders me powerless. I cannot make myself good. I am powerless and I am guilty.

The Bible confirms that I am, by nature, a mess of sin and distortion. It also tells me that I don’t have to find my identity in my deeds, nor earn God’s love by looking like I do the right things all of the time. That’s a good thing, because wow I get tired, especially when someone like my husband penetrates my good-Christian wife/mother/friend mask.

“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that none can boast” (Eph 2:8).

Either Jesus died for all of my sins, every day, and for all of yours, or he died for some other reason we don’t understand. It’s done or it’s not. I either have to desperately work for it, or I don’t. I believe we don’t.

So I continue forward hoping and sincerely wanting to do things that please God. I think this is the natural outpouring of relationship with Christ, but it comes from Christ first, not from me. My sick self cannot somehow wrestle health and wholeness out of my sick self. So God save me from boasting, because even my best works are pretty much a mess. I will fail, my heart will not always be right, self creeps in. But he continues to work in all of us, praise God. Thanks Theo, for my much needed piece of humble pie this week.

Dear Lord, please help me remember this week that my identity rests in being Your Child and in what You have done for me, not in all the not-so-great things I do for myself. Help me to serve you and to do what you want me to do even though my heart is not always right. Help me in my selfishness.

Lacking Words at the Altar

There is a hymn I love - maybe you know it:

Is there a heart o'er bound by sorrow?
Is there a life weighed down by care?
Come to the cross each burden bearing.
All our anxiety leave it there.

All your anxiety, all your care,
Bring to the mercy seat leave it there;
Never a burden He cannot bear,
Never a friend like Jesus....
(Edward Henry Joy 1920)

I made a trip to the altar this week during Family Prayer time. I often feel called to the altar without any clear reason at all, just an overwhelming sense of my own enormous need, my own sense of being drained, my own sense of how incredibly much I lack and how utterly helpless and hopeless I am without Him. I often don’t even know what to say, but I just go, and kneel, lifting up the names of people who press into my mind, remembering praises, lifting up my own needs and my own wounds from the week.

This altar thing used to be really strange to me, as I was raised Catholic and had never even heard of “trips to the altar” before I started coming to our church. I was pretty skeptical of language like “If the Spirit is moving you,” and thought most of it was a lot of emotional hullabaloo. Then I had my first experience of “the Spirit moving me” – in the form of what felt like a punch in the gut, clammy shaking hands, and the sense that I must respond to what God was calling me to respond to or forever fear the consequences. So even this skeptic has been "moved." This shouldn't be surprising really, since God is God and all. Today, the Lord (usually) can call me in a softer way, or maybe those walls are just broken. I like to think I am more receptive. Now I know it is simply a way which I can go, with any need or confession or praise, and meet Jesus.

This week as my knees hit the floor, I was grateful to release some of my heaviness into Jesus’ hands. Music playing softly, eyes closed, I sensed the presence of other believers around me doing the same thing, and let my tears join the rivers of other tears which have spilled out on that altar since long before I was there. What strength is gained in the presence of other believers!

I found myself wondering what a painting of my internal state would look like. Things to pray about were rolling through my head like five o’clock traffic, crashing into each other, mixing and intermingling, one thing combining with another to make some new and bigger need for God’s grace. I am not a skilled artist, but if it were a picture on a canvas, I’m pretty sure it would have been a big, blurry mess of reds, greys, and black. Smudged and swirling and pointless, like one of those pictures you look at and think to yourself “Really – they call that art? Why would someone call that art?”

All I have to offer you this week, Jesus, is this ridiculous painting. This blur of emotion and life baggage which I can’t even sort out enough to make it look like something recognizable…but here it is, I’m lifting it up to you because I’m tired and I know all I can do is constantly turn everything over to You.

And the good Lord takes my confusion, and supplies me with a reminder: “…the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God.” (Romans 8:26-27)

The music and prayer end and everyone shuffles back to their pews. I wipe my eyes and sit down next to Joan, incredibly grateful for a Christian Sister who won’t for one second look at me any differently for having red eyes and smeared mascara. I have been to that altar with her before. And I have been at that altar when she was out in the wilderness, praying that she would come back to be at that altar with me again, with Jesus again. And she has.

God is so good to us, even when we don’t know what to say. I am grateful He doesn’t ask me for a well thought-out prayer list or an organized system of petitioning Him. I often just hit my knees and feel my soul groan, offering big needs up to a bigger God. The Bible describes this, calling it our “birth pains” as we wait for what we hope for in Christ. All the answered prayer in my life is a testament to the fact that God’s goodness is not dependent on how articulate or functional my prayers are, nor how detailed and well-sorted my internal picture may or may not be. Often for me it’s just….Here Lord, here’s all my stuff. I’m tired, I know You are Good, help me. Thank you for always helping me.

This week, don’t shy away from running to your Heavenly Father because you are disorganized, distracted, and don’t know what to say. The Bible promises that the Spirit intercedes on behalf of our messiness – let Him!

Beautiful Day!

We took the boys to the park today!












Little Theo could have chased the ducks all day....

....But he chased them right INTO the pond. (You may not be able to tell, but his clothes are soaked in this picture).

Good thing mommy was right there to pick him up out of the mucky pond water!

He rode home in the stroller in nothing but a diaper. Oh well, it was warm enough for it. Besides, he has to learn somehow, right? Just because you are a 2 year-old does NOT mean you can walk on water. Tough lesson.

We welcome you, Spring!

The Straight Jacket Effect

Image: I am curled up in the fetal position. My arms are covering my head, my face is buried. I peek out. I see them coming. Two people much bigger than me. They are holding something between them. It is white. It is long. It looks like a robe. It is a straight-jacket. They are going to put me into it.

Instinctively I begin to fight. Internally, deep down inside, I know I will lose. There is no chance of it being any other way, they will restrain me. I could, I should just resign and save myself the effort. A useless fury rises against the inevitable. I know I will be flattened, I know this wrestling match is only my own. I know, I know, I know. But everything inside of me still rails against it, and I fight, hard.

I lose. I fight until I’m too tired to fight anymore, and I lose. They really are so much bigger than me. They haven’t even broken a sweat as they let me exhaust myself. They are totally unaffected by my fury and sense of injustice. My denial of reality is useless. Reality surrounds me in the form of the straightjacket. I continue to squirm and jab and twist and I hate every second of it.

Finally I’m done. I’m not even mad anymore, I’m just so tired. In the wake of my anger I’m also really sad, and the tears come. My strained body is motionless until the tears stop. I come to some peace that really isn’t peace at all but just a resignation to reality. I drift off to sleep.

This is the best way I can describe the cycle I go through on a regular basis when I am forced to face everything ugly in the world. And by everything ugly, I mean suffering, including but not limited to children who are sick and dying, senseless violence and disregard for human life, lives torn apart by addiction and alcoholism, abortion clinics, poverty, abuse, AIDS, infidelity, lying, cheating, loneliness in any form, corrupt religious leaders and false teachers, attacks on the Savior and people rejecting God and the list goes on ad infinitum.

It takes almost no effort to come across these things which make me believe that life is something like trying desperately to squeeze my feet into shoes that are too small. Like trying to jam the wrong key into the keyhole to start a car whose breaks go out as soon as you get going. Like the windows and doors have traded places and there is no roof anyways so it just rains on us all day every day and what is the point?

I see these things coming. They are attacks on all things good. If I even catch a glimpse or smell a whiff in the air, I immediately begin to fight that they are real. My entire being rails against so much twisted ugliness. Something deep inside of me screams “ABSOLUTELY NOT! NO-NO-NO! UNACCEPTABLE! NOT EVEN POSSIBLE! NOT TRUE! NOT REAL! NO-NO-NO!”.

But these things, they are so big. Denial is not the solution. They win a fast battle against denial. Acceptance? I absolutely cannot accept that catchy phrase I hear people saying which goes something like “everything happens for a reason, God is in control and everything is how it’s supposed to be”. Really? This is all a product of sin. And sin is not how it was supposed to be.

So I get angry. Then I get sad. Then I get tired and resign to the reality that this is life as we know it. This crushes me entirely. This is the fallen human race, this is where we live, this is what goes on, this is what will continue going on until the end.

But wait! I am reminded….before falling into the abyss of hopelessness, all is not lost!

“Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. Do not be wise in your own eyes; fear the Lord and shun evil.” (Proverbs 3:5-8)

One thing I love about my Christian faith, is that because of who God is and what He has done, I get to live in reality. God has a standard, we fall short of it. God loves fallen humanity in all its brokenness, and Jesus came to pay for it. The high cost of sin was not lowered to pennies because of our failure. Instead, the cost was upheld, and it was paid for by Jesus’ death on the cross.

So I’m free. All that ugly stuff? Yes, it really is that ugly, it really does push that hard against what God intended for us, it really does sting that bad. I don’t have to pretend, and I don’t have to try and do mental gymnastics to find a nonexistent comfort and justification for things which make me (and rightly should make me) sad, angry, disgusted, and uncomfortable.

I will still wrestle with the broken things of the world, I think I am supposed to. Based on my understanding of God’s love for us, I would say it’s safe to assume that his reactions are similar. The Bible is clear that He hates sin, so how much more must he hate the paths of destruction and pain it weaves in our lives? “Shun evil.” Being realistic about this also frees me to see the enormous contrast of all my blessings, and to cherish them all the more.

Oh yeah, and my attempts at “understanding” all this brokenness, my denial, my wrestling? It mostly just stems from my inability to look to Him instead of looking to Me.

Jesus, change my perspective. Help me keep my eyes on you instead of on everything that goes on around me. Help me look to you for peace instead of depending on myself or my own understanding. I pray that you keep my paths straight in this crooked world.

Happy Valentine's Day!

(Valentine's Day 2012)

As Christians, our greatest valued virtue is supposed to be love. So on this day of Hallmark cards and romantic mountain-tops and great expectations, I want to stop and reflect on what this love thing means in my life.

Valentine’s Day marks the 3-year anniversary of when my husband asked me for our first dance together. Only 3 years, you say? Yes, 3 years, marriage, two kids, and many other life changes. What can I say? When you know, you know.

Of course my husband and I went through the “falling in love” experience. Call me immature, call me childish, say I have watched too many Disney love story movies, but I am still there. I still get all kinds of excited when I see my husband’s truck pulling into the driveway. I still love the way he looks scruffy in his dirty work clothes. I get thrilled by the occasional times he peeks out from behind his manliness to talk to me about how he is really feeling about something. I still like to hold hands when we go out to dinner. Small compliments that he thinks are not a big deal keep me happy for days on end.

So there are the highs, like our first dates, our wedding, and all those warm fuzzy moments. And I cherish those. But there is also love not just as a feeling, but as a doing. And I have to say that when I think of examples of people in my life who make a choice to actively love, my husband is on the top of that list.

Currently, he manages an enormous construction site and a whole lot of workers. His alarm goes off at 4am everyone morning. He works all day, and spends a couple more hours on the road commuting. I know that when he finally walks in the door, he is exhausted. He usually walks in to an equally drained mom who has been home all day with two little ones, and is not only wanting a break, but also wanting some adult conversation.

I know that he would love to just go somewhere quiet, close the door, and go to sleep. I know he could really use some uninterrupted time in front of the television with a bag of Doritos. Instead, he changes out of his work clothes, and sits down on the floor, and builds blocks with his son. He shows little Theo how to hang up his tools, he puts puzzles together with him, he changes diapers and he feeds Remi mashed bananas and cereal. He listens to me talk, he carries laundry down the stairs, he listens to me talk some more, and sometimes if he knows I am on edge, he even cooks dinner so I don’t have to cook. I know he does not always feel full of gushy mushy sweetness as he does these things for us – he is not big on feelings, especially those kinds of feelings. But he does what is right and what is true, and that is what matters.

I believe that one of the rewards of trying to actively love in the way Jesus did, is that we do get to experience the warm fuzzy moments. But those moments don’t sustain us – only the decision to continue to actively love even in the absence of the warm fuzzies is sustainable.

And we can’t do that in our own strength, at least I know I can’t. I am someone who is constantly thinking about myself and my needs, my feelings and “where I am at” with everything. Then in my morning devotions, I read the 13^th chapter of the gospel of John, where Jesus washes the disciples’ feet, and commands them (and us) to do the same for one another. And I am harshly reminded of how far I often miss the mark. My husband shows me that love is a choice to serve the people we say we love. He also shows me that Jesus’ example of washing feet is not just an ideal we should talk about and romanticize, but is something we can choose to live out in the monotony of our every day lives.

So who are the examples in your life? We all have them. They are all the product of being in relationship with the Savior who steadily leads us away from self and toward the understanding of true love. Happy Valentine’s Day!