A Prayer for Monday...A Prayer for Every Day

Daddy,
Make me a blessing today.
Give me the right words...or the right silence.
Give me the ear to listen...and the heart to love.
Give me the right attitude...and a desire for peace and unity.
Give me your perspective...
...your heart
...your love.
Thank you for the privilege of giving to someone else what you so generously give to me.
I love you!
Amen

When Every Day Life is Daunting

I'm tired of life as usual.

I'm tired of sitting on my butt in my comfy little world when I know I have abilities that can help people.

I know God has His own perfect timing, and I don't want to fight that, but honestly, I wonder how often I live a small life under the excuse of "waiting for God's timing" when I simply do not get off my butt and act with determination, purpose, and fortitude.

I'm writing a book entitled "Warrior Undaunted". Can one be an undaunted warrior without living an undaunted life? More pointedly, am I living the undaunted life I'm supposed to be living, and if not, what do I need to do to engage life fully, with abandon, with passion, and with uncompromising purpose?

When You Get Disoriented

Daddy,

I need to hear YOUR voice, only your voice. Who I am, what I am supposed to do, how I am supposed to do it, the life I am supposed to live...YOUR VOICE ONLY.

I'm slipping into patterns of the past, trying to be...trying NOT to be a target for people who don't get the life and person you created me to live and be.

Fear is the enemy of consistency and stability. No victory or success is ever won by fear. Instead, fear steals purposes, personalities, and promises.

So right now, I'm asking you to silence the voices. Speak clearly to me through the mental haze to help me get re-oriented in your created purpose, person, and promises.

Thank you that you are not angry and do not condemn me for slipping into old "coping mechanisms" but delight in training me to fully align with you.

Your faithfulness fills me with joy and peace. I love you. Amen

When Who You Were and Who You Are Only Matters Because of Who He Is

Daddy,

Today I was reminded of how I've failed in the past, and I was asked how I plan to move forward. I thought I had, but obviously this person doesn't see it.

I am hurting beyond words, and once again I am fighting every voice that ever told me I wasn't good enough, perfect enough, godly enough, beautiful enough, thin enough, whatever enough. And the truth is, I'm not.

The truth is the list of my sins and failures is so long and so vast I could drown in them. Believe me, Daddy, no one knows more than me...or is more disgusted than me...at the list of how I have not been the Christian I profess to be.

And this person asked, "So how do you plan to move on from here?"

As though there and here is the same place, as though I were the same person.

And as much as I hate to admit it, this person is right. I'm the same person.

I'm the same person who hurts because life didn't work out the way I dreamed it would.
I'm the same person who fights through the fear and pain to stand in faith knowing your heart is for me and your plans are good.
I am the same person who sins because...I'm...someone who sins, and I'm the same person who has to forgive myself for not be perfect enough and not holding you in high enough regard to work harder to get it right or just choose what it right.
I'm the same person who absolutely hates getting it wrong and hurting you.
I am the same person who is ashamed of how unlike you I can be.
I'm still the same wife who wants to be perfect for her Husband and prays everyday to glorify you and every night prays for forgives for the ways I didn't.
I'm the same person who lies in my bed at night, thinks of how I made a fool of myself instead of loving like you do...and cries because really, am I ever going to get this right?
And I'm the same person who can't figure out how I can love you so much...and fail you so badly.

I'm the same person who knows I am still responsible for raising these two gifts to seek your perfection despite my imperfection.
I'm the same person who prays for you to do great things knowing how utterly not great I am...that in fact the only great thing about me is what you accomplish despite me.
I'm the same person who keeps snack bars and water bottles in my truck for people on the road knowing I can't fix their lives...but maybe for that moment instead of seeing how hard life is, they can see you.

I'm the same person who knows there is only way way to move on from anywhere, and that is you and believing you when you say there is grace for the worst of me and mercy for the ugly...and that somehow you don't see what I've done or who've I've been but choose to see who you created me to be and what I'm becoming, and, oh! God, I pray I am becoming like you.

And I'm the same person who knows...you are everything...and without you I am nothing.

You are all I have ever had. I've only had one way to move forward from anything, and that has always been...and still is...you.

I know this with all I am, and I pray that never changes.

Just Honest Faith Stuff

Daddy,
I am seeking to align my faith with your promises, and I confess I am being stretched, and I wonder if that is how faith should be--this constant stretching? Shouldn't faith be a simple, "God said this, and that is it"? Why is it I have such an easy time believing for some things and not for others? Why is it that I believe you'll provide a good job if I get trained and put out my resume but struggle to believe you'll publish this book manuscript if I am diligent to seek your face and your words and write the book? If I do what is necessary to receive a promise, shouldn't I expect you to be faithful to give it? Lord God, stay in my face about this. I mean seriously, STAY IN MY FACE. Who am I to doubt your faithfulness to keep your promises if I walk and act in accordance with their manifestation? I am sorry my doubts could ever suggest such a thing about you. You forever leave me amazed with your faithfulness...not just in what you do but also in how you love and give mercy. You are breathtaking. I love you.

Prayer for Faith

Daddy,

Lord, I need you to teach me to walk by faith and not by sight. Only in believing what isn't but can be do I allow you to invade earth with the miraculous and only then can your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. If all I believe is what I see, then I will never see anything different.

Lord, I don't want what this world is...what MY LIFE is. I want what it can be...WHAT YOU WANT IT TO BE.

Holy Spirit, lead me into the truth of faith. Teach me how to align my thinking with you. Speak to me about the words of my mouth so they can agree with you instead of keeping me tethered to the baggage of "reality" that fills this earth with what is not instead of what could be.

What it could be...is wildly yours.

"The Little Way of Ruthie Leming", by Rod Dreher

"The Little Way of Ruthie Leming", by Rod Dreher, is a beautiful story of his sister Ruthie’s living despite cancer and her death due to cancer. Even as Ruthie's body was dying, God was working a powerful act of healing...in the family...in relationships...in Rod.

While it is heartbreaking that a young woman can die of lung cancer at 42, it speaks again the eternal truth: It is not the length of a life that impacts the world. It is the quality of life that will make the world a better place, maybe not in a global sense, but in personal lives of the ones who know and are touched by that goodness. That is the kind of life Ruthie lived, and in the lives she touched, she lives on.

But this book is more than a soft-hearted remembrance of a sister, wife, daughter, friend taken too soon. It holds in its pages another eternal truth: family is complicated.

Rod talks openly about the confusion and pain that comes when a family loves each other but doesn’t always like each other and courageously lays open the reality that some pain we experience at the hands of other people is not only made possible—but caused—by the tools we give them. He embraces the truth so many of us run from and trip over: sometimes people don’t like us because we give them reason to dislike us, and instead of being confused by their dislike, we should wonder how they love us at all. And too often, it is our family we give reason to dislike us the most.

While the battles run amuck on the outside, they rage on the inside. If one person’s life means so much, is a life so different just as valid? Was truth missed and time wasted? Or are both stories—and both lives—valid in their own piece of life’s puzzle? Could it be that there is no right or wrong story because truly the story isn’t about the person but the God who somehow takes all the stories and redeems them to make His story?

And really, ultimately, this is what “The Little Way of Ruth Leming” is.

It is the story of forgiveness and being forgivable, the need for redemption, and the power of presence. It is a story of the killing power of guilt and the life giving power of sacrifice. It is the story of valuing the right things and the right people and understanding how valuable you are.

Yes, it is the story of a small town girl who lived a life of great impact in her own small way and a writer who questioned whether his “big life” among the intellectually aware and societal elite had any eternal impact at all. More than that, though, it is God’s story, how He takes lives down different paths, dips them in joy and wrinkles them with pain, and weaves them together. It is the story of small town folk and a big city writer stumbling through the pain of life and death and into the blessed truth that the secret to a good life is not the life path you choose to walk but the love you give—and accept—while you walk it.