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“I encourage you to take every single one of those thoughts/concerns to the Lord in prayer. Literally. Discuss each thing with Him.”
This is the text I received back from my Momma after sending her pictures of my three-page journal rant about what was bugging me last week. Three pages y'all. It was a week...
Now, I don’t get angry easily. It takes a LOT to really push me over the edge. But this text did that. I know, how dare my mom point me back to God, right? At the end of an emotionally draining week though, this was enough to make me want to chuck something across the room. All I sent back was a thumbs up emoji. Fine. I thought. I get it, no one really cares or wants to talk to me about how I’m doing. Just go pray about it, cause that will solve everything.
Not my finest moment.
So what did I do? Well you bet your great grandma’s chocolate chip cookies I didn’t fall to my knees in fervent prayer. Nope. I paced my room and tried to distract myself with Netflix. I’m pretty sure there is a well worn circle in the carpet now.
Did I mention this wasn’t my finest moment? Ok, yeah, so anyways.
Finally, an hour later I gave up. I slammed my laptop closed, fell into bed and wrapped my arms around my body pillow. Mkay, God. I know what you’re doing. You’re going around telling everybody to not help me because I’m supposed to “rely on you”. Fine, then. Hope you’re ready for this. I then began a very composed and saintly prayer in my head, Dear heavenly Father. Then I realized this wasn’t going to work. So I decided to pray out loud. And it started with a very bitter, “Ok, God, you listening? This is me talking to you. This is me bringing all my junk to you.” I started at the top of my list of things that were bugging me and started going down.
For the next hour, God heard the most honest words I’ve ever dared utter to Him in my life. Arms clenching my pillow. Eyes squeezed shut. Tears pooling at my chin. Every bone in my body ached for human comfort, for soothing words. I longed to be held. But in that moment of feeling abandoned to my own wounds I was laid bare before God. It was just Him and me. It was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever experienced. I knew He saw me there. It felt as though His eyes pierced the deepest parts of myself. The parts I try so desperately to hide.
Exhaustion was like a glue on my eyelids but I forced them open to glance at the time--11:30p. I had only made it through one of the three pages but my prayers were becoming incoherent mutterings. My mind had turned to mush as the emotional drainage began setting in. I fell asleep with the light on that night.
I hesitated to share about that night this week. I wanted to take time to read more about prayer in the Bible, in commentaries and ironically enough, pray over what to say about it. I’m not someone who is qualified to instruct in this area at all. My prayer life could use some work. But then in His goodness I was reminded that this blog isn’t about me being “qualified”. It’s not even about me at all. As I prayed over what I should share this week, this was the topic the Lord kept placing on my heart. So here we are…
There are a couple of big things I’ve taken away from that night. The first, is that it’s okay to pray for yourself!!! And not only is it okay, it is necessary! So stop hiding behind other people’s prayer requests. Don’t do it. You are told to cast ALL of your anxieties on the Lord because He CARES FOR YOU (1 Peter 5:7). It doesn’t say cast all of your friend’s anxieties on Him because He cares for them. Now, if part of your anxieties are about your friend, great. I am not saying to stop praying for others. That is one of the most loving things you can do for them. But you can’t expect your relationship with God to grow when you're constantly praying about other people’s relationships with Him. I don’t know about y’all, but I am sooo guilty of this. We claim we don’t see God showing up in our lives, yet all we do is pray for Him to show up in other’s.
Secondly, it is okay to pray broken prayers. They don’t have to sound like poetry! They don’t even have to be complete sentences (take that elementary english)! God doesn’t want you to hold back. He doesn’t want you to put on a pretty Sunday face before you speak! As one of my friends likes to tell me all the time: “Say it”. Just say it you guys. If you’re hurting, tell Him. If you’re celebrating, tell Him. If you’re ready to chuck a chair across the room, tell Him. God is not scared of what you are feeling or what you’re struggling with. Jesus prayed for God to spare Him the cross while in complete and utter agony. His soul was “overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:36-46). If that is not an honest, broken prayer, I don’t know what is.
So I admonish you with the same words my wise Momma sent to me:
“Take every single one of those thoughts/concerns to the Lord in prayer. Literally. Discuss each thing with Him.”
Sincerely,
“M”
P.S. Y'all should go listen to this song...SO GOOD!!!