A dear friend sent me a text over the past week asking for prayer for her one-year old baby girl, her first born, because she had her second seizure.
I'm guilty of not always following through on my promises to lift others up in prayer even when I'm specifically asked. It's interesting. It's almost like I have to push myself to break down some invisible barrier just to send a few words up to Jesus.
Prayer should be the easiest thing ever.
For me, right now, it's just ... not.
That day, however, I pulled that elusive barrier down, shut my eyes, and began to tell Jesus about my friends. It didn't take long for my throat to get tight, my eyes to well up and I had to stop.
Prayer seems to make life become a reality.
Reading a text can sometimes be like reading a line from a book or a poem or a tweet. It's easy to detach emotionally. So when I let my friend's words sit in my heart and whisper through my lips, the weight of reality set in. I found myself vulnerable and unsure about the future.
Talking to Jesus has become an elusive past time that is now filled with insecurities and doubts.
Blaming the choices I have made, such as a choosing to homeschool, is not the answer.
My reality is that I have let go of the fight. At some point I started to relax and something told me everything was fine and would continue to be fine. No, actually something told me things would be better. I just needed to relax. All that relaxing has led to higher tensions, flashes of an angry heart and someone who is giving off the portrayal of being beaten down by life.
Well hell no.
The elusive "something" will not be allowed to control me any more.
Talking to Jesus about my friends, my kids, my burdens and even my joys opens up my heart to His unfailing love and faithfulness. The weight lifts yet it feels like an unwelcoming naked vulnerability. At first.
With time, practice, faithfulness and hope, I will give Jesus my heart piece by piece. I will find that as I learn to take refuge in Him, again, I will be steadfast and beautifully vulnerable.
Yesterday I prayed for my friend. Today I will pray for me. Naked vulnerability awaits.
Amen to all of this.
ReplyDeletethere are times I have come to pray ...and all I can do is heave a huge audible sigh.
thankfully, He is a God who can hear that too - and His shoulders are big.