Surrender

Sitting here with my heart full of gratitude and tears flowing, 

I struggle with knowing how to begin.

So let's begin with...

 I am a redeemed sinner

 who is so thankful for the cross of Christ.

 It's a treasure beyond words.

It requires action from me. 

It begs for me to surrender.... 

to fully surrender....

everything...my family, my home, my job, myself...

my HEART!

Once upon a time, my life was in a neat little box with a blessed marriage, two healthy children, a rewarding job and a faith and love for Jesus. I would say that I shared my heart equally with everything in the box and life was good, so I thought. One day that box was shattered and ripped wide open and my heart was so exposed and vulnerable.

 I had a broken heart!

Now the natural thing to do was try fill my heart with things that would make it feel better; distraction, denial, avoidance, numbing...The list is long and I would have tried any of them. By the grace of God, He gave me a little faith to hold onto. Faith in things that I could not understand. On my knees and at the feet of Jesus, HE filled my heart, instead of me filling it with other things. At his feet I began to feel more love for Jesus and a deeper appreciation for the cross, which stirred up questions...

" How can I love him more? "

" I already thought I loved him. "

 Which brought me to the greatest command,

 “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment." Matthew 22:37

A revelation... Oh no, I was busy living my life in a neat box and I was sharing my heart, mind and thoughts equally with God. I was guilty of idolatry. Those babies should have had a tag on them when placed in my arms saying:

 Teach your children to love me with all their heart, soul and mind.

P.S. Warning: Don't love them more than you love me.

 Love,

 God

I used to read the ten commandments and have a mental check " do that," "don't do that". Here all this time, I didn't think I was making idols and worshiping them. My life was my idol. When my heart was so exposed and in need of repair, God showed me things about myself. 

The more God healed my heart, the more I saw myself as a sinner,

  and the ground at the foot of the cross became more level.

I stand at the foot of the cross with a world of sinners and we are equally guilty. I stand right next to the prostitutes and murderers- even though somewhere in my mind, I had put myself in a category as "not so bad, I don't do that." As if, Jesus died more for others than me.

Sometimes struggles in life leave us at a place of surrender, surrendering our minds and hearts to God. When I fully surrender I am able to see the ugliness of my own heart and I appreciate the power of the cross. At his feet I bow and surrender my heart. I never want to wake up and think more highly of myself than I should. Christ died for me because of my sin and I must never lose sight of this treasure! 

The words from I LAY ME DOWN (listen here)

Fear and failure, pride and hatred, You see all I've tried to hide.

But sweet mercy has embraced me, wrath has turned to life divine...

Into my emptiness you speak life and give me breath...

Undone by holiness take my all and nothing less...

At your feet I lay me down!

~2RJL

My Struggle With Prayer

Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. 

Stay alert and be persistent 

in your prayers for all believers everywhere.
Ephesians 6:18

On Sunday morning our Pastor had a great message on prayer being our lifeline. I couldn't agree more with prayer being my lifeline but... I must share my struggle and journey through what I understood about prayer and how I understand prayer today in my own personal life. I really never thought of God as a "genie in a bottle" yet, my pride left me thinking of prayer as something that was answered or unanswered. A very shaky belief system to be stuck in!

The journey begins with an extremely tragic and traumatic experience my whole family endured. It was a beautiful Mother's Day and my whole family was celebrating with my mom. It was a peaceful afternoon, we were sitting outside enjoying the day, we took notice of a very strange and unique white bird soaring over the house, wondering what it could be? My sister suggested we get some flowers and plant them for our mom. The planting involved all of us and a tractor. How such a peaceful moment turned into something so horrific I can't even begin to set the stage. The tractor lunged forward pinning my sister to the house while continuing to push forth with great force on her leg. Everyone I loved was in such panic and distress. All I could do was cry out to God through the tears as I saw the faces of those I loved. As she was released from the grip of the tractor, she was raced to the car with injuries not looking too serious on the outside. I remember running to her in the car and saying another prayer over her. I prayed for healing, doctors to have wisdom, learning more about her injury, I prayed for the helicopter to come quickly... I prayed and I prayed and I prayed. As it turned out the helicopter could not land due to the wind, as it turned out the doctor was a locum, as it turned out the surgeon was not available, as it turned out the hospital ran out of blood. My sister went to her heavenly home that day. From my limited view and perspective of prayer it appeared that the prayers and petitions I cried out went unanswered. I do not share any of the circumstances as if there is someone or something to blame. I share the circumstances because they were contrary to my appeals to God, ...I hold on to the promises of the Psalms 139:16, believing there is so much on this side of eternity that I do not understand. I know that God is beyond my limited comprehension of life and I can not explain anything with a comment or a word that could possibly make sense of things. So I will not try, I trust HIS words.

Your eyes saw my unformed body; 

all the days ordained for me were written in your book

 before one of them came to be.

Shaken and full of grief, I continued to hold on to God. I read the book, 90 Minutes In Heaven, which struck my nerve in regard to prayer. The story was about a man mangled beyond recognition from a car accident and believed that one of the reasons he lived was because a man crawled in his car and prayed for him. Now, I don't know why his results were different than my sisters but with comments like that it shook my own understanding of prayer. My mind raced thoughts..."if that is to be true... Did not enough people pray for my sister? Did I not pray long enough? Did I not pray hard enough...?" Very well intended people bragged about God through their answered prayers. Believe me, I became very hardened to comments like that. I remember a person who had been battling with cancer said, "My cancer has been removed, it is an answer to prayer. God is so good." I said with tears in my eyes... "God didn't answer any of my prayers for my sister, yet HE is still good." My ears became very prickly to comments made by well intended people about prayer and answered prayer. I am convinced this is one reason many people turn away from God. They have begged God to remove a struggle or a battle and haven't seen results while others share their results as answered prayer. Instead of sharing our struggles and fears we decide to brag about how God answered our prayer or how he has blessed us. All the while others are feeling alone, abandoned and not loved because their cries haven't been answered. Something I have felt many times. I had to think that maybe they too had a misunderstanding of prayer, like me.

Still trying to sort through my struggle to understand prayer, I didn't stop praying or having dialog with God but I was very cautious about how and what I asked for and who I shared with. Again tragedy struck! Seventeen months later a car accident involving our daughter. Again, I cried out to God, "Abba, Father, please give her back to me!" All alone, sitting by the car... unable to reach her, hold her and save her. Through tears, screams and cries I begged God for her life, this time knowing he very well may not answer my petitions the way I was asking of them. At the hospital, many came to join in prayer for healing, I don't want to say I was skeptical, but I was. In conversing with the Doctor, I held on to a little hope in prayer, I remember him telling me all the things that they had tried and I asked him to do me a favor and ask God.  And he said " I have been." Our lovely daughter went to her heavenly home that day. Thank goodness, I didn't give up on prayer. I felt the prayers that so many cried out to God for our family. I felt comfort at times...I felt peace at times...As time went on I felt joy at times... Days when I thought no one remembered a little card would come in the mail. There were many faithful people who felt helpless and the only thing they could do was to pray. People from the community, family, friends and complete strangers led by the spirit continued to lift our family up in prayers.  I never doubted that!

“In my distress I called to the LORD;

 I cried to my God for help. 

From his temple he heard my voice; 

my cry came before him, into his ears.” – Psalm 18:6,

Along the way, I still felt guarded about prayer. Comments like... "you need to have faith" or "God wants to bless you, just ask" made me feel I had done something wrong. Other comments, "it's a God thing" or "I see God's hand in it",  were made when things went well leading me to think God was only involved in good things and was not around in the bad. All those simple answers for a complex God made me ponder .... "Don't I have enough faith?", "Am I a bad person?" "God's only involved in good things?"  All of which I knew were lies from the enemy but again, well intentions pierced a broken and wounded heart. My prayer life became very private and very personal. I was convinced people were just a bunch of idiots. I had to work hard not to take people down into an all out body slam. "Please pray for my daughter she has her period today." Seriously!! Okay, that might be an exaggeration but it really is NOT. I was on a journey to grow in my knowledge and understanding of prayer and these comments were not helpful. Now, I know that we are to not worry about anything and let all our requests and petitions with thanksgiving be known to God, but I really needed to isolate myself from this thinking until I felt God's peace with my understanding of prayer.

Through the grieving process, I discovered and experienced Romans 8:26 & 

l Corinthians 14:14-15 My prayer time became my love language to God.  It became very emotional, moving and edifying; it became a time of worship.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness, 

For we do not know how we ought to pray, 

but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us

 with groans too deep for words.  

For if I pray in tongues, my spirit is praying,

but I don't understand what I am saying.

Well then, what shall I do?

I will pray in the spirit, 

and I will also pray in words I understand.

I will sing in the spirit, 

and I will also sing in words I understand.

On my knees with a love language for God I had never known before, I prayed and He began to fill me with HIM. An intimacy I had not known formed; a oneness was being woven. I had heard about God but I was beginning to feel I knew God. How could this be? Irregardless of my life circumstances God is so very good because of who HE is and what HE has done. On my knees... is where I knew I wanted and needed to be. 

Prayer became my lifeline!

~2RJL