Do you have a Prayer request?

Imagine, if you will. Sitting quietly in this spot, perhaps in that patch of sunlight.

Now breathe out…….and relax. Let the cares of the world drop off for just this moment.

What would you say if you bowed your head?

What peace would you wish for?

What is stirring in your mind……

Your heart…..

The depths of your soul.

Maybe it’s something you’ve never told anyone else.

Tell God……even though He already knows what it is.

Tell God….even if you are not sure God is.

Or if He even exists.

Trust me, He does.

And He wants to hear everything that’s on your heart.

He will never force His way in.

And He will never beat down the door of your heart,

But He will knock softly and relentlessly……

with love.

Do you have a prayer request today? Please feel free to leave it in the comments. I will put you on my list. I know you are there. I see the messages saying that you just started following my blog. It always makes me happy, knowing you are there. Maybe you have been here awhile now. I just want you to know I appreciate you.

Each and every one of you.

If you don’t want to leave the actual request in the comments. Leave your email in the comments and I will drop you a line.

We all need prayer.

In Him, we live and move and have our being………Lori

God wants you (and your baggage)

Some things come easily to me. It’s a gift, I know. I hear of people who struggle to believe that not only is there a God, a Supreme Being who created everything we see; but that He also wants to hear from us. We don’t serve a passive God. We serve one who wants to be involved in every aspect of our daily lives.

It wasn’t enough for Him to create everything and disengage. That’s not how He works.

What is hard for me to imagine is eternity. I always think someone will mess things up like what happened before with Adam and Eve in the garden. But the Bible says that we will live with Him forever, so I take Him at His word and I thank Him everyday for that future hope.

I pray for those who are struggling today to believe, and my belief humbles me because I know that it is truly a gift from God.

We are a flawed people loved by a perfect God. That is what I rejoice in today. My struggles come in the form of fear, worry and anxiety which the Bible says pretty much points to a lack of faith. The other day I awoke on a perfectly wonderfully free day off with my mind literally teeming with anxiety. I knew the cure so I headed out to pray.

I lit my lantern and with a dove softly cooing from a neighbor’s rooftop I gave myself a talking to. Then I talked to God.

Sometimes things like anxiety…..fear….worry, are choices, my friends. We have to choose who we will serve on any given day.

That day, I rejected my anxiety. Sometimes you have to do that. I had to ask myself who I believed. I had to put my faith into action by trusting the One who told me I didn’t have to worry. Each day is a choice whether to take God at His word or not.

My prayer went something like this:

I love you, Lord. I really love you. I am an extremely flawed individual, wrapped up in anxiety, bundled up in worry far too much of the time, but what I do have I give to you. Thank you for taking me as well as my baggage. Amen

While I was praying I envisioned me and Jesus sitting on the shore of a lake sometime in the future. We were sitting on a large rock side by side listening to the water lap gently on the shore, when He turned toward me with love and a bit of a twinkle in His eyes and said, “See? I told you there was nothing to worry about.”

My friends, give Him your baggage today, whatever it is.

He knows what to do with it.

Hot Chocolate and “Morrie”

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing;persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 2 Corinthians 4:7-9

I awoke early this morning, my usual time……3:00 AM. Lately, that’s my hour. Most of the time I can go back to sleep, many times I just pray until I can. There was no sound, I was once again settled back in my own bed after spending some much-needed time with my family. My mind felt like a clenched fist, tight and unyielding. Refusing to let go and release the thoughts that were zooming around, bouncing off the sides and back of my head resulting in a dull ache.

I breathed the first lines of the 23rd Psalm. Life really begins and ends with this one line:

The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want……..

A cup of hot chocolate sounded unbelievably good which surprised me. I am not a hot chocolate drinker, but I got up and made myself some. And it was just what I needed. I also opened “Tuesdays with Morrie,” which I had started before I left. It seems everyone in the world had read it except for me. It was the book that catapulted Mitch Albom to the top of the bestseller lists years ago and I heartily recommend it if you are one of the few like me who read all his other books except that one.

The chapter I read, Morrie was talking about family and what it means to have someone always watching out for you. He talked about people who stay, that family is not only about love, but about “letting others know there’s someone who is watching out for them.” Morrie knows the importance of this because he doesn’t have long to live. At the time of the interviews by his former student, Mitch Albom, he was dying of Lou Gehrig’s disease.

I was thinking about all this in light of my trip home.

How blessed we are if we have someone in our life who will not leave. Knowing for better or worse they have our back and our best interests at heart. To be willing to say even the hard words that need to be said. To be willing to be disliked, even, in the name of love. That’s what real love is. Speaking the truth in love even when it hurts you more to say it.

As we got in the car to leave for the airport yesterday, I gripped the hands of Mom and Dad to say a prayer and found that tears had taken all my words. The moments that twist you inside out are when your Mom says that she has loved you more in the last year than at any other time, and you didn’t even know that. Finally, I squeaked out….”Sometimes the best prayers are the ones without words.” We all nodded as we wiped tears.

And even though they want me more than anything to be there always, Dad says he’s glad that “I can go back to my life, away from this chaos.” He knows how I love order, structure. And he knows the value of having a good job. He respects me for that, even though it means I leave and can’t be there more to help.

Even though it’s their loss, they are happy for me.

It pierced my heart when he came out limping when I drove him to Flame Market on the corner to get gas. I thought, “Someone else should be doing this for him.” It’s hard when Superheroes show signs of mortality, when they can’t do the things they used to. When you know how hard it is but you know they are going to do it anyway.

As I laid the book down and drowsed off again, I prayed the same prayer I pray every New Year. That the Lord will hold them all in the Palm of His hand until I can go back again.

How blessed I am to come home to a freshly washed car and a clean house, the decorations just like they were when I left. It took my breath away all over again. It’s good to be there, but it’s good to be here.

Thank you Elaine for doing all you do.

Thank you God, for what you will do in the coming year. Every New Year holds promise because of You.

Ushering in Advent

It is December first and I wake early, in the dark. Still trying to shake off remnants of the work week, I get up for a couple of Advil and head back to bed, breathing a still prayer in the silence. The last three hours of work were stressful yesterday and the shadows of it still crouched in my mind, refusing to dislodge. And yet, I have three days off and I am aglow with the ushering in of Advent.

Be still my soul. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, for though He has already come, and gone and come again with the gift of His Spirit, (He never went away) I celebrate His coming all over again.

In these still hours, my mind feels close to You.

Heal it Lord, wrap it in Your balm of peace.

Erase the cares and worries of the week

with Your healing touch.

Prepare me for Your Advent…….

It’s God with us, still.

Always and forever.

Behold, I show you a mystery: We shall not all sleep; but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. 1 Corinthians 15:51

Today is a gift. Let the celebrations begin, for it’s time to light the house, play Handel’s Messiah, and do all the things we only do this time of year. For He is worthy of a party. And the miracle just never, ever gets old.

In the early morning hours

I thank you God for still loving me despite the crazy thoughts, those prayers wrapped in fear that I whisper in the dark. Thank you for enfolding me in your love after I have dumped all my garbage in your lap.

Thank you for always meeting me, no matter what time it is. Bound up as we are in these hours between day and night we sometimes forget that you are outside the constraints of it. You’re always awake, nothing slips your notice, Lord.

Time and time again I am surprised when you don’t reject me. Instead you throw Your arms open wide as you nudge me towards your Word, which is the source of all comfort.

This morning, when I knew I wouldn’t go back to sleep, I started the coffee and grabbed the big heavy robe. The one I always reach for when I just can’t seem to get warm. I went outside under the canopy of stars, my fingers wrapped around my coffee mug, and I looked at the constellations and saw that they were all still there and saw it again for the miracle it is.

I went back inside and opened my devotional book to this:

You can live as close to me as you choose, I set up no barriers between us; neither do I tear down barriers that you erect……Sarah Young, “Jesus Calling”

And then towards the bottom,

I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go, I will meet all your needs according to my glorious riches. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate you from My love.

Beautiful lines of Scripture from Genesis, Philippians, and Romans. It was all the confirmation I needed.

Finding our strength in the quiet

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. Isaiah 30:15

Too much of what we take part of in this modern world is unnatural, that’s why we don’t have peace–we don’t even know how to go about getting it. In Reading the Psalms, praying in the quiet hours, sitting in the silence concentrating on only the beating of our heart, our breathing slow in and out we remember who we are and who God is and who we are in Him.

That is what is known as meditation. And it’s not just for mystics and yogis.

It’s in concentrating on our own brokenness that we can begin to see the brokenness in others. And yet………

All to often we won’t turn towards our fellow believers so we can help each other mend. If we keep insisting we are all okay, we will never reach that place called the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus was talking about.

The Spirit of reconciliation, that’s what God desires for His church……may it come Lord Jesus. Find Him in the quiet moments today.

But I have stilled and quieted my soul; like a weaned child with its mother, like a weaned child is my soul within me. Psalm 131:2

The path to peace

“No one is righteous—
    not even one.
No one is truly wise;
    no one is seeking God.
All have turned away;
    all have become useless.
No one does good,
    not a single one.”
“Their talk is foul, like the stench from an open grave.
    Their tongues are filled with lies.”
“Snake venom drips from their lips.”
“Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness.”
“They rush to commit murder.
Destruction and misery always follow them.
They don’t know where to find peace.”
“They have no fear of God at all.”

Romans 3:11-18

We watched the first installment of the new series, “The Blacklist” last night starring James Spader. Well, a few parts I watched through my fingers because I was afraid of what I’d see. “What happened to the bad guy?” I asked E. “I don’t know,” she said, “I was afraid to watch, I was sure the husband was going to get killed.” I guess we’ll never know. Needless to say, it was a scene we were not expecting and totally unprepared for.

I was almost ready for bed when I started watching it, but wide awake by the time the show was over.

All over the news, all over the world there is violence. You don’t have to look far. And cursing has become the norm, even for kids. They hear it from their parents. I compare the world now to the one I grew up in. A mistake I know. It’s something I thought I would never do and now I am. It’s hard not to, when you see such a marked difference, when you see how things have changed.

One thing I never had a moment of at any of my school campuses was real fear. All the way from Kindergarten through High School. Well, maybe I was a little afraid of BJ, she was one of the tough girls. And Steven Weigum. He was a punk. With Steven, you worked hard to be invisible. I was good at it, except for the one time I forgot to wear green on St. Patrick’s day.

From Grammar school all the way to Junior High, I heard maybe one parent say the “F’ word and I was shocked. Actually I didn’t even hear them say it, the daughter said she overheard her Mom say it…….once.

I feel sad for kids today. In many ways, they live in a callous and harsh world. Images of violence fills their culture through television, movies, video games and even music. Fear is part and parcel of their everyday world at school since all the school shootings started. Even us adults have to work hard to deprogram our minds from what we see and hear all day, on the news, at work. It would be easy to lose heart, to lose hope. To despair even.

It’s why I try to spend time alone with God the very first part of my day and saturate myself with His words. Sometimes I spend an hour, sometimes it’s 20 minutes, it’s just Him and me getting back to ground zero. Giving my mind and heart over to Him gets me back on track, brings me back home. It takes all that negative the world gives out and replaces it with what’s good.

It is an awesome thing to think we can have an open session with the God of the Universe anytime we want it. In fact, He seeks it…….delights in it. May it never get old for me.

It’s easy to think I’m a pretty good person when I watch a show like we watched last night where really bad guys are plotting to wreak havoc on the world, until I realize that in the verses above, the Apostle Paul is talking about all of us without Jesus.

And when I call that person “a name” for cutting me off on the freeway? I realize there is less distance between me and those character references in the book of Romans than I thought.

He reminds me of how my pitiful little rags of righteousness looked before they were dipped in His fountain.

It’s humbling, yes it is. But it’s good.

If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 1 John 1:8,9

One thousand (plus one) love letters to God

Then those whose lives honored God got together and talked it over. God saw what they were doing and listened in. A book was opened in God’s presence and minutes were taken of the meeting, with the names of the God-fearers written down, all the names of those who honored God’s name. Malachi 3:16, The Message

When I glanced up at the number of posts I thought, “It can’t be. How could I have passed 1000 posts and not have known?”

One thousand thoughts, one thousand meanderings, one thousand words I have set free to see what God would do. One thousand dreams, one thousand hopes, one thousand love letters to God.

One thousand ways I can share my faith, as well as my victories, things God and I and you did together……….One thousand times I have failed to love, and one thousand fears set free. It’s amazing really, what He has done with these words. Like bread cast upon the waters, He has carried them further than I ever thought possible.

I stare at the shore and wonder at my own words that have washed up from somewhere I never suspected. Only God can do that. When God stirs words they have a way of coming back full circle. I think of how they’ve come back from people I never dreamed would read them. I think of the ones who sowed the Word into me when I was young in all those Sunday school classes and sermons. To those that first sparked life and hope into my heart I would say this:

“It was the seeds of your own kindness and love for God that caused these words to grow.”

One thousand mornings of entering prayer like a sealed jar, my hope flickering like the candle, I sit back down and wait on Him to find He has already been there. It’s always Him who waits for me. Sometimes I’m not even sure where to start so I don’t. And it’s okay, for the waiting itself is Holy.

Once the words start tumbling out I experience a resurrection that I can no longer keep to myself. I find that God is not scared of what tumbles or flies out of this jar, whether black unnamed thing or brightly colored butterfly, and it seems that neither are you, dear reader. Many of you are still here.

The most important thing I have learned is how much He loves me, and that is what I want you to know.

And what He has taught me through all of you. I have learned that when I harness my words to prayer, miracles happen and when we join our words together it feels much like communion. I could never repay the friendships, the community of love I have found through writing. Your comments never fail to humble me.

Every now and then I think I might just seal this jar and keep the lid screwed on tight, who wants to see this mess anyway? But I thank God that never lasts, that feeling. The love I feel for God is so strong this flesh cannot contain it.

So here’s to 1000 more love letters to God.

And you…..

I thank you for hanging in with me this far.

Even as we are one

I remember a time.

before all the crap, all the baggage, all the pain that gets between us all……..

when we just held hands and felt nothing but God.

With lifted hands and eyes full of joy we sang choruses, I remember.

How we loved Him.

And oh how happy we were because we ran smack dab into Heaven and,

for just a moment, we knew what You meant

when You said that You wanted us to be one as You and Your Father were.

Why can’t we do it again?

Why can’t we do it now?

Let’s do it today.

My prayer that we could open our eyes and see, really see each other.

Not just mutter adlib an answer as we walk away

Forgive me when I give your precious words of diamonds and gold

no more than a cursory glance.

Let me not admire them inattentively then cast them aside

like just another pretty stone.

Let me hold your face in my hands and look into your soul

And really see where you have been.

Let me always see Jesus in your eyes.

Then……

Let us grab hands and travel this path together.

Both of us together……

All of us together. Side by side.

Toward Heaven.

I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me. John 17: 20-22

I believe that with everything going on in this world, that we need church unity more than ever before.

Let us hold each other close.

photo credit: creative commons some rights reserved: damselfly58

Love your neighbor but cut yourself some slack too!

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31

“Hey you, there.

Gripping the steering wheel on the way to work, I see you. You with the heavy sack on your shoulders. You, trying so hard to love your neighbor that you forget to cut yourself any slack at all. I see you.

I see all the worries you try so hard to press down. I see how valiantly you get up and go out the door while I have yet to touch the sky with My dawn’s light. I see how you pray on the way to work, trying to beat back the panic attacks that come like flocks of black crows beating their wings in your heart.

I know how you worry about everyone, both the ones near, and the ones far away. I know that each day you fear a phone call. One that tells you they are in the hospital or they fell, or worse. You feel like if you could corral everyone in one place, you could control circumstances…..keep them safe.

I see how you place them in my care and take them back again.

I see how you coast to a stop in the parking lot as you draw a breath and heave that bag and juggle that traveler’s mug full of courage.

Drink from My cup of peace.

My child, in your haste to do right by everyone else, don’t forget yourself.

Sometimes we try so hard to love our neighbor that we forget all about ourselves.

photo source: creative commons, some rights reserved by remittancegirl, on flickr

Lori's Prayer Closet

"And when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done is secret, will reward you……"Matthew 6:6

Prayer