A Decade Plus Two {A Love Poem}

 It was just twelve years ago that we said “I do”.

Over twenty years since we said “I love you”.

So much has changed in a decade plus two!

We have fought the good fight- facing hard things, standing tall in trials.

Sitting in difficult times.

Waiting for God's plan for our pain.

Fighting together through seasons of refinement.

Yet one thing remains the same-

In the bad and the good, the blessed and the broken,

We continue to walk together towards Him.

We sometimes look back with longing, it's true.

Our address has changed a few times.

Our family has grown by two.

Our church home has come and gone and been made new.

Some people have let us down, but others have held us up.

Our faith has shifted, our perspective has matured.

Our Savior has begun to work in us in much more disciplined ways.

So much has changed!

But one thing remains-

We continue to walk with Him.

For as much as God has stretched us since we first joined hearts,

I look forward to seeing what twelve more can do.

A decade plus two has brought up deep truths,

About who we are in Him and who we are with others.

Yet twelve years of learning is only the beginning...

Keep growing, keep going, keep walking together with Him...

Always in love.

Rebecca

~*~

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view my creative writing,

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You Are His Favorite {My Ambivalence}

We long to love and be loved by the people who can no longer live in our neighborhood because of deep wounds and betrayal. This ambivalence is a deeply human experience. Our Father has strategically placed certain people in our lives to gently but persistently reveal our own brokenness. He does this in order to draw out the worst in us. Only then can we appreciate our value as the favorite child of God.

Truth is, you are His favorite child.

Say this out loud to yourself- it's true. What feelings come up for you as you speak this statement? Most likely, you have conflicting emotions.

And so He wants you to see the depth of your enemy’s failure so that you can grasp the true depth of His abundant forgiveness and love for you.

Recognizing the ambivalence in the soul caused by betrayal is a great place to start. 

Ambivalence is the experience of two conflicting feelings at the same time; disgust and desire, love and hate, invitation and rejection. When you think about the broken relationship(s) in your life, you may experience ambivalence. I know I do- as much as I desire reconciliation, I equally desire full and public restitution for all my suffering.

It's selfish. It's human. It's honest. It hurts.

Let's dive into this very human experience of ambivalence together, shall we?

Think now of that one person who is impossible for you to love. Perhaps they are in your church, among your extended circle of friends, or even in your family. They stand tall among their peers, they hurt you, and they cannot be safely approached for discussion- you are helpless to change their opinion of things and it is hopeless to think of the restoration of your relationship with him or her. This feeling of resentment you hold against them is as solid and fixed as a very large rock weighing you down. Down. Down.

Generally speaking we are incapable of seeing the true brokenness within ourselves. We are quick to extend grace to our own person, forgiving our daily mistakes, but hesitant to extend this empathy and compassion to others. So Jesus can use the pain of an impossible betrayal to deliver a gift- motivation to seek a change of your own inner person. Our own failures are easier to overlook than the failures of our enemies, so God does His most powerful work here, in the places where we nurse our offense towards His favorite children.

Think again of that one person you cannot love. Because all of us have people that we Do. Not. Like.

Maybe we admit it, or maybe we avoid it. But to be human is to have enemies.

Jesus had numerous enemies, and He was God. So who are we, flawed humans, to think we can avoid this reality? Enemies are inevitable.

It is not a question of whether you will have enemies, it is a question of whether you will love them.

So here it is: you have the privilege to be called the favorite child of God. AND your enemy is entitled to this privilege as well.

Not fair? Not in human terms. Love is the Kingdom currency.

So you can both stand side by side in this same privilege of ridiculous love because scarcity does not exist in Kingdom economy. There is no limit of Gods’ favoritism for His children. Just because I am His beloved does not mean another is not, or that others are less so.

But we don’t want to share the benefits of belovedness if there are people we decide do not deserve it. So we judge harshly and often- the scarcity mindset says that love is limited and should not be extended to just anyone.

This week God spoke this statement to me, “I am going to reveal to you the depth of your betrayer's failure so that you can grasp the reality of My forgiveness.”

Resistance sets in. We argue with Jesus. We want to reserve the right to judge the ways in which others have wronged us. It’s based on experience and repeat offense, and we are smart and observant. We will not be duped again. They deserve to be loved less than us. We are not stupid. Their sin is much more damaging than ours.

Damaging to whom?

We are so foolish.

Oh no, we say to God, “that person” does not deserve to be as beloved as I am. Look at what they have done! They fall shorter than I do, just look at how they have messed up. Look at their life, it’s obvious how wrong they are!

It’s a soul-distorting comparison game. Because you are messy too. Your sin damages also. Is there a limit of acceptable sin? Where does Grace fit into this equation??

Yet we choose to avoid our own failure and focus on that of our enemy, and we withhold the love of God from those we decide are no longer our neighbors.

After all, even the Jews agreed that you love only those who are close to you:

Leviticus 19:18 (NLT)

¹⁸ “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against a fellow Israelite, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

We like to love our neighbors, the people who live close to us but probably know little about us, those who see our best and never cross our bad side. The people nearby who we only have to speak with when we feel like coming outside.

The people we can quietly retreat from when we fall short, maintaining our good standing with them because we only see them when our best foot is forward.

We see our neighbors only on Sundays, or only when we gather for an occasional coffee or dessert, perhaps just in passing to get the mail. These people are easy to love.

Our neighbors are the people who do not mirror our sins but reflect only our goodness. Yes, it is easy to love only those who do not see our capacity for shortcoming, the truth of our mistakes.

So this makes Jesus offensive when he declares the new Kingdom currency which extends out beyond our neighborhood- love.

⁴³ “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor’^[a] and hate your enemy. ⁴⁴ But I say, love your enemies!^[b] Pray for those who persecute you! ⁴⁵ In that way, you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven. For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.” Matthew 5:43-45  (NLT)

Why did Jesus say “You have heard the law that says ‘hate your enemies’”? What is Jesus talking about here? It does not say “hate your enemies” in the Jewish law. His listeners had not heard the law say that. The law only said “love your neighbors and fellow community”. So where is Jesus extrapolating the word hate from this command?

Did He misquote the law or forget what had been written before He came?

I hardly think so. It’s Jesus.

Oh, well then, perhaps in typical Jesus fashion he was talking about the hearts of his listeners, who heard “love your neighbor” and deciphered permission to “hate those who are not”.

If there is an inner circle, this implies there are people on the outside. If there are neighbors, there are therefore outsiders. Who is marginalized from your heart? Who have you cast away from your community, no matter how justified you may have been in doing so? These, these are the enemies. This is where “that person” you are thinking of resides, in the shadows on the outside of love.

Jesus said “hate” because he knew that some of his listeners had heard it said “don’t bear a grudge against your fellow community members” and assumed a condensation of meaning that allowed them to hate those who were deemed “outside” of their social circle.

Some people may not be safe for you, and they may need to stay outside of your neighborhood. I understand that completely.

But they are still loved by God. So what to do with them?

Jesus says to love. So we killed Him.

Now to be fair, He did not say “allow enemies into your neighborhood” or “invite them back into your intimate circle”. This may come with time, or it may never come at all. You may be willing to reconcile, but the other party may be unwilling. You may change, and the other person may remain unsafe. The distance between you could possibly be permanent. 

This is not a problem for love- such reunion is not required, because the love Jesus talks about is a mindset and not a moment.

Jesus said a much harder thing than “reconcile” or "close the gap"- He said we must endow upon the enemy the rights and privileges given to a favorite child of God, even if they remain outside of your circle of safe people.

You can extend the fruits of the Spirit to someone who is not allowed in your neighborhood- they do not need to enter your inner circle of companionship to receive the Grace which flows through you from your Father.

Because the fruits of Grace do not depend on proximity to be given or received- they only require submission to the empowering teachings of Jesus.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer within the circle of Kingdom belovedness.

I don’t know how to do this well at all.

When it comes to reconciliation and forgiveness, I am a terrible student. At best, I am beginning to pick up bits and pieces of Jesus teaching and only just starting to fit them into something tangible. Most days I fail- occasionally I succeed. It’s a long and arduous process, mostly just because I make it so through my stubborn resistance to His teachings and my repeated persistence in living on my own broken terms.

After all, it’s convenient to have enemies- it makes this life easier. But it makes spiritual transformation much harder.

I did learn one thing this week that I want to share here with my readers: my enemies are beloved favorite children of my Redeemer. Not for how they hurt me, or for how they hurt themselves and others, but because they bear His image and my Father longs to lavish His love upon them just as He is already doing for me.

Think of that one person you cannot love well. Because all of us have people that we Do. Not. Like. Choose to see them as a favorite child of God, not merely tolerated by Jesus but fully loved by Him. Just as you are. Even in your stubborn clinging to your old ways of living, He calls you beloved.

And nobody wants to love their enemies on an actual, practical level, which is why the Messenger was killed.

It is a daily discipline to love your enemies, because the entire body and brain rebels against it until we take captive the thoughts which hold us hostage to hate. This takes a lifetime to accomplish.

So when you are on the other side of this life, when the Kingdom comes, your race is won, then what is the one thing you look forward to having the most? For me, it’s this: Reunion and reconciliation with the people I call my enemy.

I look forward to shalom with those who have wounded my heart. I long to love and be loved by the people who can no longer live in my neighborhood because of deep wounds and betrayal.

In heaven I want a long and genuine hug of deep affection from those whom Jesus will call my enemies- those unsafe brothers and sisters in His family.

When Jesus says “love your enemies”, who specifically comes to mind for you? That is exactly where Jesus wants to begin His work in you.

He wants to unite broken relationships among all His favorite children. Not to force our hand, but to break down the walls which boundary our hearts from fulfilling relationships. Enemies do that to us- influence us to boundary up our heart so that we can withhold our love. Not because of who they are, but because of who we become as a result of our reaction to their own brokenness.

Truly, I look forward to having deep, rewarding and meaningful fellowship with the people in my life who have inspired me to build up walls. Some relationships may not be fully repairable in this lifetime, but we can still affirm the beloved inheritance that God is offering to them.

We can watch the value of our enemies rise up, up up as we open ourselves to the power of increasing Grace.

And you are making progress if you experience ambivalence towards your enemies as we attempt to love them.

Because enemies are people who cause deep ambivalence within the soul- a longing to both forgive and to punish at the same time. 

And I read recently that it is a sign of maturity to become aware and accepting of the reality that there are fellow children of God who bring out ambivalence in me, both because of how they choose to live their lives and because of how I choose to live mine. A collision of interests, because neither party has in mind the interests of God.

If you feel ambivalent towards your enemies, you are making significant progress. This means that love is beginning to shine through the cracks in your high walls. Not so that your enemies can get in, but so that you can climb out.

Should some relationships require distance indefinitely for very valid reasons, that painful reality does not exempt those people from falling under the “enemy” category which Jesus talks about. That person who will never be safe for you indicates a place in your soul where God wants to begin His healing process. Irreconcilable differences can only be healed when favoritism is set apart from scarcity.This is a Kingdom economy with a currency of unconditional love.

And a nuance here: I don’t mean to become doormats, letting unsafe people trample upon your heart. I mean to become empowered to recognize an enemy as a favorite child of God with all due rights and privileges. You do not need to get close to “that person” to picture them standing alongside you under the light of forgiveness and grace which covers you both in a blanket of redemption. This is the seed for Kingdom victory in your soul.

Could you stand hand in hand with that person in front of the cross and receive forgiveness together?

For the rain falls both on the wounded and the wounder, the one who causes pain and the one who receives it- Jesus recognizes this contradiction and He is working to correct it. Not by withholding the rain, but by extending the dramatic effects of His transforming grace.

This week God clearly said to me, “I need you to see the depth of this person’s personal failure so that you can grasp the deeper truth of my forgiveness.”

I didn’t like that, but it gave meaning to an area of frustration in my life, a place where I have been working to invite Jesus to heal and repair- an ongoing process that means picking up my cross daily and following Him, even when I really Do. Not. Want. To.

This process of picking up our cross and following Him is redundant. It is meant to be so, because we are a stubborn and forgetful people. So we need that one person who’s betrayal reveals the extent of human failure, because that one person reveals the extent of God’s love.

He loves your enemy JUST AS MUCH as He loves you. What does this mean for your relationships?

The problem with accepting that you are God’s favorite child is that the scarcity mindset says that if I am His favorite, others are not. The Kingdom reality is that we are each His favorite.

We need to see each other’s failures because it is a mirror image of our own. It helps us see ourselves more clearly. And God knows we need help to see inside our own hearts, so He strategically placed certain people in our lives to gently but persistently mirror our own brokenness and bring out the worst in us so we realize our desperate need for Grace.

You were His favorite child before you accomplished a single thing- He loves you just as much today as He did the first day you were conceived. Nothing can change that- nothing can knock you out of His favoritism. Even that one person whom you cannot love- nobody can take away your favored status except yourself, by refusing to live in it.

When we see the sin of our betrayers, we feel anger. When we see that same sin within ourselves, we feel shame, because that same judgement we cast out has now been cast back on us. So Jesus steps in to break the cycle of unforgiveness which we are helpless to stop.

When shame loses it’s power in the light of our favored status as a child of God, our sin does not go away. In fact, in comes into sharper contrast against the divine and holy love of our King. But instead of hiding our failures from Him, we can begin to present them honestly and openly, again and again, because we trust He will not turn away or punish us.

Take up your cross again. And again. And again.

When we think of that one person whom we cannot fully forgive today, we must begin to also think of that one place inside our self which we cannot fully invite Jesus into, for that is what that one person mirrors within us. That is the first place He wants to transform.

So love your hurting brothers and sisters, because it is good for your soul. Love them from a safe distance or love them up close. But love them either way.

So as you go about your week, think of the ways in which God is using the sinners around you to wake you up to the depth of His redeeming love. Instead of carrying around the weight of that one person’s terrible wrong (and it is terrible, I am sure), take on the lighter burden of appreciating how good God is to love ALL His children in the midst of such rampant brokenness. He wants you to see the extent of human betrayal so that you can grasp the truth of His forgiveness.

When you think of that one person, think also of the promise that you are His favorite, too, and there is no scarcity of forgiveness in the family of God.

You are His favorite child, so you can afford to love your enemy today.

Do not annihilate your enemy, but incorporate them into the Kingdom reality.

Practice loving your enemies because this is the art of soul care.

Here to close is my prayer for this week, as I look ahead at the challenges I face:

“Father, You say to Your children to come as you are- so I come as I am. A bit restless, longing for more, desiring attention and validation from Your Spirit, wanting to stay asleep but compelled to wake up by the people around me, expecting the worst but wanting the best, full of sin but open to grace. Jesus, I invite you into the mess that is my frail human soul and I hope that You will wake it up today to the glories of Your provision and blessing. I know I fall so hopelessly short of the human ideal that You established during Your ministry here on Earth. I also know that You are my loving Father who draws near to me even in my sin and shortcoming. I see my imperfections and so do You- together let’s continue my spiritual transformation one small step at a time today. Walk with me, Jesus, and teach me Your way, the only way to live.”

Join me, brothers and sisters, as we learn how to love the children of God that we do not like.

With all my imperfect love,

Rebecca

~*~

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view my creative writing,

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35 Years {My Gift}

God gave me a divine appointment yesterday that I will here unwrap: I can consider a position on the Pastoral Care Team for my church family.

As my readers know, later this year I will go to Seminary (I have been accepted!!) and also train as a life coach with the Freedom Center OC. And the bow on top of this gift is that I can reinstate the same title which I lost and grieved in a lengthy state of depression and self-doubt.

If you know my story, you know what this means for my faith.

Today it is my birthday- I am 35 years old. I am messy and imperfect and lacking in many ways, and so there is nothing I did to earn or deserve this chapter. This is grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific with my journey.

I have been invited to consider joining the Pastoral Care Team at Saddleback Church Yorba Linda. For me personally, this is big. It means that God has returned everything back to me that I thought I had lost- my dignity, my calling as a pastor, my church family, my drive to learn, my desire to grow spiritually, teaching Sunday school, setting up the church campus in the early mornings, my titles, my labels, my badge, my walkie-talkie, even becoming friends with the children's ministry pastor and the teaching pastor. 

Little things, big things. He has returned to me all the things I grieved. Not identical to what they were, but perfect because they are His and not mine. And not because I earned them back, but because His love is lavished upon me through the power of His will.

I am learning to slowly trust this truth: There is nothing you can do to fall out of the will of God if you are pursuing Him with all your heart.

Yes, Jesus awakened this call in my heart to serve in pastoral care several years ago, and so THIS time I will trust Him with the outcome.

I do not credit those who have hurt me with paving this path, because they are the ones who almost squelched it and crushed me. That damage seems even now to be permanent. However, I credit them with being the passing messengers of God's greater calling on my life.

I have learned a few things along the way. Choice mistakes into which I have dug deep, found the roots, and begun to pull them up and out.

I will not push through with striving, but I will wait for His perfect timing.

This is a birthday of second chances.

~*~

It was the early hours of Sunday morning, Father's Day, when I woke before the rest of my family in order to arrive early at the church campus to set up the Children’s Ministry area.

There would be old cars and family pictures to celebrate the Dads in our community.

I prepared to go into my day with a heart open to receive from my good Father of grace. I would receive imperfectly, but I would apply my stubborn and persistent faith to the best that I was able. For grace is not opposed to effort but to earning.

The routine actions of each morning are the same, so I can move through my sleepy morning fog with machine-like precision. And after I am ready, each morning I eat two boiled eggs followed by one banana and one scoop of soy yogurt with cinnamon and a drizzle of honey. And one tall glass of water.

I always take my bible and my journal with me to the breakfast table, even if I only have a few minutes to spare. This is one way to keep myself emotionally healthy even when I do NOT want to practice soul care.

And this morning, I felt something nagging me from within- an unwanted emotion.

Grief? Depression?

Hurt.

Not again. Oh, old pain, I don’t have time for you today. Not now.

But I have learned to acknowledge these feelings, because they come from deep wounds which need attention. To ignore the truth is to force it to leak out in unwanted places that produce bitter and broken fruit.

So instead of avoiding the feeling stirring inside, I stared right at it and wrote only that which was really honest:

Dear Jesus- Today I acknowledge the hurt feelings that rise up inside against my will. I check in with my soul to see what continues to need care and healing. What are the parts of me that don’t have a voice, the places that are shut tight inside? This is where I need Your grace to infiltrate and flood in. Dear soul, why are you downcast? I spent this time remembering all my hurts. Jesus, I ask You to sit with me here and show me how to heal. I give myself permission to feel wounded, and I give You permission to enter the pain and extend grace and empathy to myself, through myself, because I need to be seen today. Amen.

And I wallowed in my sorrow for a bit, because you cannot put a time limit on the healing process.

But God lifted me up when it was time to release the grief back to Him, and I credit myself with responding willingly, even though I wanted to nurse the sad for a while longer.

He said, “It's Father's Day and I am your Good Father. Tomorrow is your birthday and I am the one who created you. My child, I want to bless you here. Make room for something new.”

So I finished my breakfast, pushed back the plate and read Numbers 22 before I left to serve my church in the wee hours of the day.

No time now for context, but here is what spoke to me as I read while I sipped my water-

Numbers 22:18-19 (NLT)

¹⁸ But Balaam responded to Balak’s messengers, “Even if Balak were to give me his palace filled with silver and gold, I would be powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God. ¹⁹ But stay here one more night, and I will see if the Lord has anything else to say to me.”

I am powerless to do anything against the will of the Lord my God?

Well, to feel powerless is to feel vulnerable and unsafe- any human would avoid a situation where he or she feels powerless.

To be powerless is to be a victim, exposed to the will of another.

And I have learned the hard way throughout the course of 35 years that being powerless before another fallen human being is dangerous and often produces pain.

But my Father is not fallen or broken. Dangerous? Yes.

But also, He is very good.

His will is perfect. Can we submit our power to the perfect will of a loving Father?

What if I am a victim of grace?

And so I decided to wait and see if the Lord had anything else to say to me.

The house was quiet and I was running late. Nothing.

I put away the Scripture and my journal and moved into the cold morning with tired hope. I pushed chairs, pulled boxes, unloaded crates and set up the classroom.

Does the Lord have anything else to say to me?

I am working up a sweat, setting up the classrooms before the children arrive.

Enter my campus pastor, who strikes up a conversation which leads to discussion about my recent acceptance into Talbot Seminary.

“What is your major?”

“Well, I want a Master of Divinity, which will take me a long time to achieve. But the emphasis I will be working on throughout the years to come is in Pastoral Care and Counseling."

“Really? Wow, well just this week we are starting to put together a Pastoral Care Team for our campus. Let me connect you with the leaders, they would love to meet you!”

And I find myself shaking hands with a couple that wants to meet for dinner in the weeks to come, so we can discuss my experience, my story, and my desire to serve the church through Pastoral Care.

They want to consider me for their pastoral care team.

I am being seen.

~*~

Friends, only if you have followed my story will you understand the meaning this has. Since I decided to pursue seminary graduate work, new doors have opened which I could never have anticipated.

This is grace, of which I am a victim.

Several weeks ago I was invited to join a cohort which will teach me the discipline of counselling women into freedom.

Now I find myself suddenly invited to meet a couple who is interested in adding me to a newly forming pastoral care team. 

Does this chapter sound familiar??

The timing of the gift is not lost on me today, my birthday.

When I am headed towards Jesus, no matter how far away I presently am from the prize, I am powerless to do anything against the will of my Father, because even my greatest mistakes and biggest regrets have not prevented these blessings from coming.

And so as I come to the breakfast table this morning to read the Word and write about my feelings, here is my journal entry on the 35^th year of my story:

Father- you have given me the gift of second chances. I have been adopted into Your famly and I have inherited Your eternal riches. I see that You are moving in to bless me, and so I position myself to receive. Jesus, I do not deserve Your grace but I am daily given a reason to keep moving towards it. Search my heart and soul, and let Your Spirit reveal whether I am striving to earn Your love OR making efforts to draw near to it. I look back at my first 35 years and I see many seeds planted- some among the choking weeds, shallow soil or painful exposure to harm; but others in good, rich soil which will daily grow into a harvest of good fruit in the 35 years yet to come. Thank you, God, for all that You have done to reach me. I am Yours and I will follow You. Your will be done. Amen.

I am going to Seminary. I am training to be a life coach. And now I will begin the pursuit of a position in Pastoral Care for my church family.

Seriously, unreal. Just how God has given me back every thing that was lost. Not in the way I wanted, and not without massive amounts of painful refinement which continue on to this very day. But all of it with a persuasive abundance of beloved grace.

I have never been more uncertain of the future and yet certain that God is doing something new.

Can train-wrecks be redeemed? Well, mine is in the process. One year ago I was wallowing in grief to such a degree that I believed I would not see the light of another day.

Today I belong to a new church family, I embrace a lost-and-found dream, and I still battle with anxiety but in the midst of ever-increasing grace.

Here I sit, in the early morning hours of my 35th year, choosing to remain powerless before the perfect will of my good and powerful Father.

I will bask in the gift of a second chance. I will learn to trust. I will allow myself to feel joy and I will surrender more pieces of my grief.

I have never been more uncertain of the purpose of my future and yet absolutely certain that God is doing something new and something very specific.

Shame has no place here.

Fear, I see you, but you cannot stay for long.

Depression, I know you are near, but my soul is in the care of Someone else.

I am a victim of Grace, and so I will surrender here and see what else He wants to say to me on this day, my birthday.

The path less traveled is certainly full of blessings, even among the rocky places of pain. If He can use my wounds for freedom, He can certainly use yours as well. Our setbacks really CAN become our superpowers.

Do not be afraid to become powerless before your Creator- His will is dangerous, but it is very good.

I will write this next year of my story as a victim of Grace.

Happy birthday to me :)

Rebecca

~*~

Support my work by following my page.

To read my story or

view my creative writing,

please visit my original blog site.

Contemplative Prayer {Let Sleeping Dogs Lie}

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God. So always let sleeping dogs lie when you come to the place of contemplative prayer. For as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we must shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him.

In the aftermath of the storm, when we are still unsorted but no longer emotionally driven, this is where He does His transformation work. Moving from spiritual infancy to relational intimacy with our God is a challenge that includes the vulnerability of communicating with Him.

I wonder as I sit here today- is my faith based upon the adrenaline of emotionally fueled need? Or can I converse with my Savior when I am in His gentle abiding presence, even when I am not carried along by the powerful rescuing of His power? 

When I look back and see the places where there were two sets of footprints in the sand instead of His one, were we walking together in silence or was I sharing aloud my thoughts with Him?

When the emotion dies down and the dust settles, this is where we begin the discipline of figuring out how to talk to God on a daily basis. Like a marriage that moves beyond the honeymoon stage of emotional ups and downs, we can no longer base our faith on our response to the pendulum swing of feeling and response. 

Now that I am safely on dry ground, what can I say once the gratitude comes to an end and the adrenaline of decision runs out?

My transparent confession here is that I don’t know how to talk to God on a normal day- it feels stoic and detached if my prayer is not compelled by tears. And there is nothing lifegiving about an outlook on faith that requires pain to remain motivated.

This past week I have been anxious about my prayer life, so it was time to stop and settle myself into a sermon about surrender, yokes and sustainable faith. And so here today I will attempt to connect my stunted prayer life to the sermon at my home church, a weekend workshop I attended on fear, and silly pictures of my sleeping dog…

I sat down in my study for the first time since we completed it over the weekend, the space my husband created for my love of writing and hope for learning. God willing I will be going to school part-time in the Fall, but either way this is a new and sacred space for my creative and productive writing endeavors. So I paused here in this room to listen to the sermon from Sunday. 

It was a talk from Pastor Rick about keeping your tank full when you are tempted to try running on empty. After a nine-part series on living with margin, my church family wraps up this practical application series with a theme which turned out to be demonstrated right in front of me as I sat there listening-

My dog was asleep on her bed, back on the floor and legs in the air, eyes shut and tongue hanging out. It was clearly well with her soul. 

This is why yoga poses get named after dogs, because they know something we humans don’t- God created us to rest and refuel. This means laying flat on our backs with no agenda and no worries (even if we are normally itchy and high-octane, hell-bound on catching squirrels, retrieving balls and barking viciously at coyotes), relaxing even our tongue so that we do not speak but receive life-giving communion in the silence of our soul.

She was allowing her brain to enter into a state of complete vulnerable relaxation, because even the animals know that silence and solitude is required for healthy survival.

This high-powered, ball-fetching, saber-toothed machine was in a posture of refueling that expressed wisdom which far surpassed my straight back and crossed legs as I sat consuming Christianity in my rocking chair. And Pastor Rick talked for nearly 90 minutes about coming to Jesus for an easy yoke and a releasing of burdens.

But how do you find this kind of rest when

you don’t know how to talk to God

on the other side of a storm?

Last Saturday I went to a workshop at The Freedom Center called Fearless, and in the course of six hours I was invited to explore the deeper pieces of my relationship to Jesus. Especially significant to me was being reminded of a tool I already have in my belt which I rarely ever use- the beautiful practice of Lectio Divina. 

Lectio Divina is a divine reading of Scripture followed by a quiet contemplation of the words; you simply sit with the reading and absorb it into your mind. In practice over time, you begin finding a physical place in the Scripture where you belong, especially if it’s a story passage. The reader literally dwells in the reading, abiding in the meaning and allowing herself to feel whatever is the natural response to this invitation to join Jesus on the page.

I could see the disparity between my inability to pray out loud and my desire to meet Him only in the storm. When the emotional chaos is over, He invites me into the aftermath, which is the most intimate meeting of all, because in that quiet place of post-destruction is where we can speak with Him most calmly and receive His gentle sorting through the damage that was done.

Without the pressure of desperate need and imperative rescue, what do our words sound like when we speak to Him- or do we speak at all? If our conversations with Jesus only happen during storms, very little is actually said and we never develop a conversational relationship, but rather depend on emotion to drive our communication with God. But this is not sustainable. Thus, seeking relationship with Jesus in the gentle margins of drama is a significant part of spiritual formation.

During the workshop we specifically practiced Lectio Divina from the story of when Jesus calms the storm.

It reads like this:

Mark 4:35-41 (NLT)

³⁵ As evening came, Jesus said to his disciples, “Let’s cross to the other side of the lake.” ³⁶ So they took Jesus in the boat and started out, leaving the crowds behind (although other boats followed). ³⁷ But soon a fierce storm came up. High waves were breaking into the boat, and it began to fill with water.

³⁸ Jesus was sleeping at the back of the boat with his head on a cushion. The disciples woke him up, shouting, “Teacher, don’t you care that we’re going to drown?”

³⁹ When Jesus woke up, he rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Silence! Be still!” Suddenly the wind stopped, and there was a great calm. ⁴⁰ Then he asked them, “Why are you afraid? Do you still have no faith?”

⁴¹ The disciples were absolutely terrified. “Who is this man?” they asked each other. “Even the wind and waves obey him!”

After the reading we spent several minutes in silence allowing ourselves to connect with the text and find ourselves in it.

I found myself writing these words in my quiet reflection on the passage-

I am a bird above the storm. I cannot see what is happening, I don’t know who is involved. But I know I am afraid and there is danger.

The clouds begin to break apart very suddenly, and there is an invitation- keep flying onward or dive down and see what God has been doing here.

Ignore the damage and miss the healing, or stop and enter the aftermath in order to see Jesus face to face?

The storm has passed and the invitation is to come and see what God is doing there now…

What is God doing here with me now that the storm is over? What is He sorting through?

All week I have abstained from prayer because I don’t know what to say. I think my relationship to Him has been based on the emotional turmoil of the past few years- so what now?? I have come through a storm, but I am still myself, and God is still God, and how do I spend an entire lifetime as His beloved when I don't know how to talk to Him on a normal day?

So as I sat and listened to Pastor Rick discuss resting in Jesus, I found myself feeling ashamed and anxious- am I doing this spiritual growth thing right? Am I getting it down? Why don’t I have an abundance of peace? Is my margin big enough for deep healing to happen? Is my faith really so shallow???

All the while my dog snores at my feet, and God knocks at my heart and the light of peace rages outside my window.

“Daughter,” He says, “I am not in a hurry. I want to be in your story with you as Your source of deep soul-rest and contentment. Stop asking these questions of yourself and start asking them of Me. Don’t doubt yourself, doubt Me and then watch how I will exceed your expectations every time. Surrender the unsorted fallout, now that the storm is over, and abide with Me in the messy aftermath as we float together here on a clam sea of deep waters.”

Says my pastor as I rock and listen and worry, “It is miserable to sit in God’s waiting room when we are in a hurry and He is not.”

Jesus, I have a lovely room to wait in, but my mind is somewhere else today, chasing after every worry and fear that passes through my thoughts. I don't know how to relate to You outside of a storm.

So I look for storms for my faith to ride on. Like the worry that I won’t finish grad school when I haven't even started or been accepted yet. Irrational? But God! I am a full-time mommy of two- and today I have a sick boy home from school, and the fear rises up which says I cannot miss class and take care of my sick child at the same time, so what am I going to do, God?

Anxiety says quit while you are ahead, because it might be hard. Assume there is a storm even when there is not one, because who knows when another one will set in. Live each day like there is a storm, even when there is not. Search for storms and pray about them like crazy, never letting an opportunity pass you by to grab worry by the horns and ride it into the sunset.

And then how is God supposed to speak to us over the screaming chaos of our fears? If He is always rescuing us, how can He ever meet with us in the calm places of our mind?

So God leans in closer and says, “Meet Me in the margin and let sleeping dogs lie.”

And that margin is a discipline, one which requires contemplative prayer.

Friends, God has called me to prayer this week. No, not the prayer I say in the presence of others, but the prayer I speak aloud into the silence when I am alone with Him.

This is hard. It feels vulnerable to come to God without desperate need, but simply to approach Him for the sake of intimate conversation. To say to Him, "can we talk about what happened, now that it's over and I can think more clearly?"

When my guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have a real conversation with God.

To communicate with the Spirit effectively, we must allow Him to calm the storm of our emotions and bring quiet to the chaotic places in our mind. Then we must be willing to meet with Him in the aftermath, amidst the silent disorder and quiet confusion, and begin to sort things out. Piece by piece, thought by thought, broken relationships and old wounds attended to in the quiet of our conversation which is slightly muffled by the vast silence all around us.

To be alone with God after the storm is to be absolutely and terrifyingly vulnerable. To speak in this space is even more so. To let sleeping dogs lie means to enter into a sacred space where the only agenda is relational intimacy.

Contemplative prayer happens in the margin of our emotions, in the space between input and reaction, observation and conclusion, realization and response. If we can widen the margin between the calming of the storm and the rapid moving onwards towards the next storm, in that sacred space we can find healing for our soul through a closeness of our Savior.

I learned an awakening fact at the Fearless workshop- Prayer is centered in the part of the brain that processes and understands what has happened post-reaction. So contemplative prayer is actually centered in the calm which comes after the storm.

Now I am no neuroscientist, so don’t correct my lack of knowledge on the subject of brain science. Just give me grace for the path of learning I am taking at my own slow pace. I’m doing the best I know how with the little information I have thus far. But according to what I heard, contemplative prayer happens in the rational part of our brain called the neocortex.

Here is what struck me when I learned this about prayer- I have a hard time praying because I feel like I should have a wave of emotion behind my words when I pray out loud. Otherwise I feel like they are not authentic.

Basically, I am only good at praying when I am in a storm- afterwards, I don't know what to say.

Whenever I pray in public, or even in quiet, I become calm and almost “emotionless” as my mind centers on the words and my awareness movse away from how I was feeling before I started the prayer. I disassociate from my emotions when I pray out loud. I thought this was a problem.

But wouldn’t this be a good thing for someone who struggles with anxiety? Yes. Because it means I can move out from under anxiety when I pray, because prayer brings my awareness to a part of my brain which is rational and good at reasoning and regulating emotion. And it explains a lot about how prayer practiced as a discipline over time literally heals the brain from unwanted emotion.

But somehow I have always considered myself a “bad” pray-er because I never feel "emotional" when I speak plain and simple words to God out loud- unless I am in a storm. When my prayers are desperate and broken and full of tear-filled repentant need for rescue, then I have strong communication with God. But one cannot live an entire prayer life dependent upon storms, because who can live in continual fear?

So I almost always write my prayers, because then they flow with emotion and feel genuine and also safe, since writing happens in a different place within the brain than speaking. Writing my prayers is great, and I have written countless prayers and treasure them and will pass them onto my children someday. But despite my written affluence, I still stumble to speak to God out loud. 

Yet I hear a call to create intimacy with Christ by meeting with Him in the margin and speaking with Him in the places that need freedom from fear. There is hope to know that peaceful prayer is actually supposed to be free from raging emotion, because God located it in a different place in our brain. It has a sacred space all it's own, and for good reason- it keeps is safe from the storm and accessible outside of emotional turbulence. Good news for me, but still hard to realize.

Unlike when I write to Him, when I actually talk to God I feel very small and insufficient and rather deflated. When I get quiet before God I can hear His invitation in the aftermath of emotional chaos, but I don't know how to reply. So often I am intimidated by the invitation to meet with Him in the calm, because I am so accustomed to meeting Him only in the chaos. But in the discipline of contemplative prayer, if I wait with humility and patience and trust His gentle presence, He will point out a quiet place where our conversation can begin.

As He meets me in my insecurities, He gently invites me to speak with Him in the places that accommodate intimate conversation.

It is this separation of emotion and prayer that feels foreign and confusing, vulnerable and intimate. Why am I here, if not to ask for something I need? To approach our God for the sake of being with Him, to come to Him unsorted and exposed and uncertain, this is what it means to let sleeping dogs lie. Don't upset the restful state of mind, but abide in it and receive much needed healing in calmer waters.

Just as contemplative prayer happens in the neocortex of the brain, I also learned that emotion is located in the limbic system, a separate part of the brain. This is where we feel- the place where the storm hits and the reaction happens. This is where we act without thinking and evaluate later. This is where regrets happen, and words we cannot take back. This is where shame takes root.

Thankfully for anxiety-prone people such as myself, the place inside our brain where we practice contemplative prayer is not the same place as where we experience violent emotional storms.

So there is a difference between braving the storm and speaking with the Savior. There must be an experience of both extremes- extreme emotion and extreme tranquility. To have a quiet mind allows God to meet us on a deeper level. Big emotions can pave the way for communion with God because they indicate the areas that need healing and create opportunity for invitation, but intimate conversation with God happens after the storm has passed. 

Braving the waves may initiate the start of a relationship with Him, but they cannot define it. We must meet with Jesus in the quite places of our mind where we can process His love for us and the reason for His rescue. When the dog is sleeping, let it be, because as sure as the dawn it will rise up and demand attention soon enough. When prayer is not fueled by emotion, pray anyways- even if it feels empty, as I know it does sometimes. 

In the letdown after a storm, contemplative prayer is an access to His presence that is only possible in the quiet state of still waters.

Prayer heals the brain because speaking to God requires mental processing, rational thought and awareness of the present moment. So in order to get from emotional response down into contemplative prayer, we must invite Jesus to discuss the storm with us after it is all over, so that we can come down from our fearful flight high in the sky and see what He is doing at ground level within us.

I liken the storm to the amygdala, that part of our limbic system which is in fight or flight mode.

My daughter calls the amygdala the "guard dog", one which is always on the lookout for danger. It worries, stresses, panics, doubts, and has not concept of time. It is a place of emotional turmoil- we need help to regulate and calm this internal chaos. Jesus, in my imaginative illustration here, is the hippocampus. This is a place in our brain which requires language in order to heal and grow. My daughter calls this the "wise owl" of her thoughts. It moderates the storm through analytical reasoning, builds context for situations and pulls things into perspective. It keeps the guard dog calm under stress.

If we put language to what we are feeling, if we pray aloud in the silence of the aftermath, we allow Jesus to enter in and move into the neocortex, that place in our brain where we can begin to pray and process and begin to develop sustainable, intimate relationship with Him.

This is good news for anxious, prayer-stunted, shell-shocked followers of Jesus such as myself.

I want to become brave enough to dive into the aftermath and talk rationally with Him about what has happened and what He is doing to sort it all out now.

Friends, the hope I have today is that I can assist in my own healing process by learning to how to pray. I activate my neocortex when I speak with Jesus, and I can process my anxiety in a healthy way through even the most timid conversation with Him. Now that I know this, I can consciously invite Jesus to meet with me in the stillness of my rational brain, separate from my emotion, so that we can converse together in peace. For an anxious worrier like myself, this is a great comfort. 

I look forward to practicing this more in the days to come as I anticipate going back to school.

I want to begin enter into awe and wonder when I approach conversation with God, as I desire to move down into the stillness of the aftermath. When I am anxious, I will remember the tool of contemplative prayer- it does not take away the cause of my anxiety, but it frees me up to converse with my Teacher about whatever is going on. It helps me find a sacred space to do healing work by His side. This is Jesus doing a transforming work within me, inviting His child to see not only the unsorted damage but to witness the miracle of soul repair that He is quietly carrying out.

We actively assist in our own healing when we practice contemplative prayer, and this happens through words that are humble, gentle and honest. This, my friends, is why He tells us that His burden is light.

Matthew 11:28-30 (NLT)

²⁸ Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. ²⁹ Take my yoke upon you. Let me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. ³⁰ For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.”

When Pastor Rick talks to us about soul-deep rest, he is talking about the promise that if we meet with Jesus in the margin through disciplines such as Lecto Divina and contemplative prayer, our brain will literally arrive in a place where we can communicate clearly with our God and receive the comfort and peace that we crave.

No, the problems are not solved, the worries are not erased. But they are given proper perspective, a place of submission beneath the gracious will of God. And He can begin to sort through the wreckage alongside us, and we will be in awe that He is so good to love us even when we feel so unsorted.

This is how you find rest 

and intimacy with God

on the other side of a storm.

Father, forgive me for neglecting to meet and talk with You on so many occasions. I have preferred to fly over the storm and ignore it, rather than waiting for You to part the clouds and inviting me to survey the damage with You so that we can begin the repair together. Please help me find the language I need to speak words of surrender to You so that I can experience the lightness of Your yoke upon my shoulders, and the freedom to slow my pace and arrive alongside You instead of moving on, away from healing and towards another storm. For myself and all those who are reading this today, I ask for You to quiet the chaos of our ego-mind so that we can experience the deep healing of trusting You with our emotional weariness. God, invite us again to survey the damage and meet with You in the place in our brain where we process information and contemplate Your words. May I learn to trust You both in the speaking and in the silence, both in the storm and in the peace, and please bless my feeble attempts to talk to You when the storm is over and I don’t know what to say.

Thank you for loving me even when I feel so unsorted.

In Jesus name, Amen.

As we go into this week, dear friends, may we remember that in order to exchange our emotional burden for the mental processing of peace, we must meet with Him in the calm which comes after the storm. Here the emotion dies down and the dust settles, because it is after the storm is over that He does His most intimate work within us, sorting gently and quietly through the wreckage as we talk about each piece with Him. And as the mysterious Rescuer becomes the intimate Beloved, we can shift our mindset and change the way we talk to Him. 

Thank you so much for contemplating this in prayer with me today- I very much appreciate my tiny tribe of readers.

When your guard dog stops barking, that's the time to have that intimate conversation with Jesus for which He patiently awaits. So let sleeping dogs lie, and may all canines be peaceful and happy as we contemplate Gods' Word in the quiet aftermath of the storm :)

With Gratitude,

Rebecca

~*~

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