Prayer

How to Have A Well-Watered Spiritual Backyard

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Is it just me or does anyone else find this sign hilarious? If you look carefully at the background, the thought does come to my mind that perhaps this isn’t the best place to advertise for a lush lawn and consistent irrigation. And how is our our backyard measuring up, before we spout off to others the ways we can help?

When are we speaking confidently, forcefully, as if we know what we are talking about when we should be getting out our ears, polishing them up a little, turning up the volume and re-affixing them so that their input can reach our brains?

When do I take off my ears and loud mouth when I should be asking questions? This is the question that the photo above blares at me, as if through a loudspeaker.

Today, in the prayer meeting, she mentioned how we can have the equivalent of pebbles in our shoes. Little annoyances that after we have been walking for a long, long time without a reset, will significantly impede our journeys.

Is it time for a rest? Time to allow another to listen to us, to lean against them as we rest, to catch our balance, and to remove the rock from our shoe, so that we can walk straight again?

Is it time to stop figuring out how to carry another’s burdens, and to relieve our hearts to a trusted friend?

I took her up on her offer and prayed aloud the concern that had been nagging at my heart. Not an earth-shattering prayer, no. Nothing about world peace, or global reform. Just a little concern about someone I love that has been weighing me down.

A pebble in my shoe.

And she took care of it. Gave me some clean socks in her prayer that echoed my heart. A few tears were shed. She offered me some water from her canteen.

We continued our journeys, her and I, each one travelling our own way, down slightly different paths. Our paths will merge again, and reconnect, but perhaps not until the next prayer meeting.

But until next time, next week, I got a little rest.

I felt better somehow, as we joined our heads and hearts together to pray about our unwatered lawns and shabby-looking backyards. It’s ok. God is growing a garden there, and he wants to grow flowers in the gardens of the people that we encounter, as well, as we are honest with others about our desolate backyards.

And I was comforted to remember the way to fix a broken irrigation system, a dry or non-existent lawn. The solution is to grab hold of a friend’s hand and to pray together, over that dry spot. To keep holding on when she shows you a dry area in her lawn.

To stop and pray together for a while, that the rains will come before we travel our own paths.

Sure beats trying to hide the truth, which is obvious to all who look carefully at my life, anyway.

God Spoke Through You And You Didn’t Notice?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

It was amazing. God is soo amazing! I mean, why COULDN’T He use other people, even, yes, STRANGERS to speak to us, if we have ears to hear?

This is what happened.

I had been working on growing to LOVE reading my bible, not blowing dust off the cover, reading it for 90 seconds, slamming it shut, and flicking YouTube back on. How do we LOVE to read our bibles?

One mentor suggested that AS I read a few verses of ancient text that feel particularly FRESH in this season to pause and ask God what He may be saying as I read.

For example, I was meditating on Psalm 139. This is the Psalm describing how God made each one of us with SUCH exquisite care. “Do you have anything else You want to say about how You made me?” I asked him.

I saw a picture in my mind of Jesus making a pot of soup, and adding a dash of this spice, a dash of that.

I am the soup that Jesus was making.

He is the master chef, knowing just how much spice a dish needs to be delicious.

My mentor suggested that I ask Jesus more specifically, “What are the spices you put into my soup?”

He said basil was one of the spices.

Kind of an ordinary spice.

I thought I must have heard incorrectly. Didn’t he mean SAFFRON or maybe something a bit more exotic? Nope. I asked Him again that afternoon.

Basil.

I felt that I should learn a bit more about basil, just in case I was hearing from God correctly, so I typed that keyword into Wikipedia.

I didn’t know this but basil is used by the Greek Orthodox Church to make holy water.

Purify my church, He seemed to be saying.

Not quite sure how to do that except perhaps to speak truth about the absurd in church culture. And perhaps He was encouraging me in my various roles of prayer and ministry?

The next day I was at the grocery store, and a customer one foot away from me asked the clerk about basil. She was yelling.

“You don’t have any basil?“ She was incredulous.

“I’ve been to every store in town and there is no basil anywhere!”

“Are we in a basil shortage?”

Now, there are lots of other foods to eat in our culture, praise God. But this woman REALLY WANTED basil. She pondered aloud with her daughter what they would do about the Thai wraps they were supposed to make that night.

I felt that God was speaking to my heart, that what I carry is a unique gift to the world. Something that others want.

Kind of like basil on the night you are making Thai wraps.

Kind of like the gift God put inside of you.

“The key to our identity is if we can love ourselves . . . If we know we are loved, then we have something to give others.” Steve Chua

Are you transparent enough that others can see your basil when they are searching high and low for it?

What gift that the world needs is lurking deep inside of you stuck behind layers of fear? Ask Holy Spirit to whisper what the next step is to reveal this. He’ll give you a shovel and help you dig it out.

My Heart Reaches Through This Blog Post To Shake Your Hand. Really.

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She reached her hand through the book I was reading and grabbed my throat, squeezing me.

Her name was Immaculée Ilibagiza and she was the author of the book Left to Tell. Her hand was her words, convicting me.

The book was about her true story of surviving the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

Up until that point, I had been reading, my cool drink by my side, sipping as I lounged in my comfy chair.

“Where were all the foreigners who should have been speaking to their politicians, holding up banners to raise awareness, sending us relief?”

Her hand round my throat.

In one sentence I had gone from passive observer to active participant. To an active participant who had failed the protagonist during her moment of terror.

Yes, where were we, anyway?

I read later that the criminal and civic trials of football star O.J. Simpson dominated the news during that time.

We were distracted.

And now it’s my turn to reach my hand through this blog and to touch your heart.

I want to shake your hand and say thank you.

I am writing this blog because I am looking for the types of conversations that I want to be having more frequently.

I can tolerate shallow conversations but just barely.

I mean, I can tolerate shallow conversation in the same way that dogs can handle cuddling. Most of us assume that dogs love to cuddle right, just like most of us assume that all we want is shallow conversation.

But multiple dog trainers have assured me that dogs DON’T, in fact, love to cuddle. “The cuddliest breeds can simply tolerate it,” one assured me.

As an aside, I have learned that the only true exception to this general principle is my own dog. If I wrap both my arms tightly around his neck and hold him close, he likes to stay with me.

(Doesn’t shallow conversation feel a bit like that sometimes?)

And so in the same way that most dogs (besides mine) can simply TOLERATE cuddles, many more of us than we realize, I think, also can simply TOLERATE shallow conversations.

Topics with depth are what I truly love to write and talk about with others.

And because you are interested in these kinds of deeper topics, that are further under the surface of things than the weather and that sometimes touch the depths of our hearts, well, my heart reaches out to your heart in a warm embrace.

I am thankful for you. You reading these posts encourages me to keep opening up to the deeper thoughts of life.

And please be encouraged to comment with your thoughts, so we can get the conversation going both ways.

Or join us in our next conversation and prayer time.

That’s all.

God Speaks Hope Without Speaking – Do You Have Ears To Hear?

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We look at the Son and see the God who cannot be seen. The Message

She spoke in metaphor at the prayer meeting.

Kind of like Jesus did.

His disciples came and asked [Jesus], “Why do you use parables when you talk to the people?” Ancient Text

Holy Spirit reached through the metaphor, through her words, and touched my heart.

Her metaphor, her prayer, was one of the ways Jesus spoke to me recently without using words.

“Coming to Jesus, with our box of “need” is like going to the chiropractor,” she began.

She didn’t know I had been to the chiropractor the day before. I had even forgotten, until that moment, that this chiropractor was a gift from God to me. A gift I forgot to be thankful for.

But I was attentive to the metaphor, tracking.

“Yes, we come to God with our problems just as we come to a chiropractor.” I concurred with her words as they flowed from her mouth, ministering to me.

Some of her words penetrated a deeper level of my heart, further than words can go.

“Do any of you feel that your life is a clock and you are constantly late? And not just by minutes but by decades?” she continued.

I had just poured out my heart to God that week, alone in the car, tears flowing, “Lord, time is a monster that terrifies me, renders me immobile!” I cried out.

This was a depth of my heart that lay buried beneath more pressing items: making dinner for the family, paying the bills, helping the struggling one, being busy, busy, doing the life stuff.

What do I do with the angst that lies buried within, at a depth no scuba diver, and no words can plummet?

Under it all, lay this monster, most often asleep, but threatening to awaken just before I fell asleep at night. Would I wake this monster when I fell asleep? In the depths of night, would this depth of my heart surface and waken me, demanding conversation again?

I came as a patient, God as my chiropractor. “I can’t help you adjust me,” I say to Jesus. “I bring only my pain. Adjust me. Realign me. I surrender to your unusual ways.”

The chiropractor bent my body and slammed herself against my leg, dropped a part of the table beneath me on purpose, and I walked out straighter, with less pain.

Like a healing chiropractor, God wants to adjust the depth of my fears, to re-align my thinking to His ways, to help me run without so much pain on this journey of life.

Yes, God can pick me up again, like the toddler that has fallen, and say, “Good job, keep walking in that direction.”

He is the Head and we are the body. We can grow up healthy in God only as he nourishes us. The Message

Re-aligning my thinking to the truth that Jesus completed his work on earth in only three years, that He multiplied the meager child’s lunch to feed a stadium, that God created the universe in one breath, that God lives outside of time is the healing oil that soothes my anxious heart, today.

May each one of us come to You, Holy Spirit, with the tangled mess of our fears that we have no words for. May You, like the faithful chiropractor, realign our thinking to flow from Your thoughts of the direction You want for our lives.

May we walk in joy, again today, because our thinking has been re-aligned, put under submission, to the great chiropractor of our hearts, You. May You, without using words, heal even what we don’t have words to express.

We surrender the outcome of our lives to You and choose to walk in obedience along the path You lead us on. You’ve got this.

May we run and dance in freedom, again, on this day, we pray.

Shhh . . . Do You Hear Jesus Speaking To You In A New Way?

/ Lori Lawe / Leave a comment

Jesus, while He was walking the earth as a human, said a LOT without speaking.

Consider the following example:

Mary Magdalene came to the tomb and saw that the stone was moved away from the entrance. She ran at once to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, gasping for breath. . . Peter and the other disciple left immediately for the tomb. . . Simon Peter . . .entered the tomb, observed the linen cloths lying there, and the kerchief used to cover his head not lying with the linen cloths but separate, neatly folded by itself. The Message

We scratch our heads. Our ears are lying on the floor. We can’t hear Jesus speaking through the bolded words above! You must be making stuff up!

We read the newspaper instead and remain locked in fear. We call this freedom.

Jesus stands next to us, holding out a shovel. Are we willing to dig for some gold? Our freedom is at stake. His words are purposed to help us soar.

And so we rub our eyes from our sleepy state, reluctantly receive the shovel He holds out to us, and try with one hand to hold up one ear to our head so it won’t fall off again. “What exactly are You trying to say?”, we ask, yawning, digging awkwardly with the other hand.

In Jewish culture in the time of Jesus, folding up a napkin (translated above as “kerchief”) after a meal was a way of saying “I am finished.”

We hold onto our ear, about to fall off again. “Uh-huh,” we murmur. Yes, it was finished at the resurrection. We know this.

HANG ON before your ears drop to the floor again and you go back to sleep.

Jesus said “It is finished” to His confused followers because they hadn’t seen the end of The Jesus Film yet. They didn’t know how things would pan out.

But He speaks to US through the folded napkin too, as we apply what He said many years ago to our lives today.

Don’t drop your ear yet!

He says:

I speak in ways that you don’t expect, without words, sometimes. Do you want to hear me? If so, get out your shovel, hold up one of your ears to your head, and dig, friend, dig.

I offer freedom.

Do you want My gifts?

Jesus, may we hold both ears up to our head, eventually, as we learn to listen and to dig into Your words. May you answer our every question. May we come to another with our questions, and may they help us to dig, or may they offer the gold they have already found from studying Your life.

May many, many more of us learn that we have wings.

As you listen to this song, consider holding one of your ears up to your head and asking Jesus to touch your heart with His love. May you receive exactly what you need to fully satisfy your soul, whether He speaks with or without words to you today. May your heart be filled with His love for you, we pray.

A way Jesus recently spoke without using words will be discussed in future posts.

Is Holy Spirit Attempting to Waken You?

/ Lori Lawe / 4 Comments

Yeah, so I might have had a small touch of fear now and then over my lifetime.

OK, let’s admit it. Fear is paralyzing me, my constant friend.

Jesus walks over to me, crouches in the corner next to me, and offers me His arm. It is time to stand. I rise on quaking legs.

He is asking me to run. He hangs back, crouching down low to whisper in my ear as I hide in the fetal position. Time to run, His eyes bid. He gazes in the direction He wants me to travel.

I pull the covers over my head. I am trying to go back to sleep.

Wake, wake, dear one. He whispers. He is shaking me, gently. Wake up.

And so the decision rests in my heart. Will I get up, rub my half-seeing eyes and stand into the new thing that God is calling me to?

Or will I put in earplugs to distance myself from the sound of Jesus’ voice and go back to sleep?

The choice is mine. The choice is yours. What is your heart’s reply?

One day He asked me to run into a cooking adventure. The result freed my daughter from expectations around various diagnoses that tried to pin her down.

One day He threw me into the deep end of the spiritual swimming pool. I awoke more fully with the splash of water and have been swimming more deeply, in a spiritual sense, since that day.

One day He asked me to homeschool, again, another year. This was many years after I thought I would change my apron for a real job, one that actually pays money in exchange for work. A job that is recognized culturally as actually “doing” something worthwhile.

I left my career identity by the side of the road and followed Jesus down a narrower path to homeschool longer, my inexperienced feet aching from the journey of following Him.

I had wanted to go back to sleep then, too. To rest in the comforting mold of what regular people do. Go to work. Put their kids in school.

And yet, maybe He is using our unappreciated homeschooling journeys to bring hope to society.

He woke me again this morning, early. Write, my dear one, write, He whispered.

Are you the one that I am writing for?

Are you, like me, also beginning to wake up?

In your drowsy state, do you sense He is trying to waken you, too?

Are you being awakened to pour more of your life into your children, to grow, grow, grow in hearing His voice, to a creative endeavour, too?

To something else?

If so, welcome to the adventure of a lifetime of following Jesus!

He walks ahead of you, bidding you to follow.

Will you trust Him enough to join Him on His journey for your life?

If we can leave our fear behind, the journey is exhilarating.

This is what God says . . . “Forget about what’s happened; don’t keep going over old history. Be alert, be present. I’m about to do something brand-new. It’s bursting out! Don’t you see it? The Message

Holy Spirit, help us to be able to hear You when You call us to a new thing. May we be brave enough to follow You. After a few moments of quietly listening for the voice of God as the song below plays, ask Jesus, “What direction do you want me to travel in this next season? What needs to be left behind?”

Rejoice in Your Fear

/ Lori Lawe / 3 Comments

The newspaper is like the genie in the bottle, a monster emerging from the words. It stares down at me, huge and menacing. My teeth quake as I glance at it, trembling. I am afraid.

I am left in the corner, quaking, the monster guarding me, bidding that I say right where I am, crouched in the corner. It is watching for when it is safe for me to come out.

But it never is. Another scare. Another news item. One crisis after another. I crouch and hide, obedient to my fear.

But when I attempt to rise on quaking legs, and when I stand, holding, as a crutch, the arm of the One standing next to me, I feel a bit stronger. But my head still spins.

Come, He seems to bid. Take just one step, my child. One step and then another. I focus on Him, who steadies me when I walk.

His face becomes a bit clearer. The arm that I rest on feels a bit more solid, and less a figment of my imagination.

And my fear, which once dominated me, returns to rest deep within the newspaper, where it belongs. It is always lurking inside there, and within the words of some others that I meet.

But I realize now that fear is too strong for me. I cannot tame it. But it can be supplanted by my intense, prolonged, focus on the One who is not afraid.

And then I walk. And then I run. And then I give a cup of water to the thirsty. And then I wash the smelly feet of the hurting stranger, the one who, also, has been terrorized into a shell of herself by her fear.

“Come,” I bid. “There is One who will help you to walk. Let’s take the first step, together, sister, brother. I will show you how to lean on His arm a bit more often, a bit more of your full body weight supported by Him the next time you fall. Don’t let go.”

And as we tread upon our fear, He is raising up a great army. He passes you the weapons that are needed for this great war: love, compassion, humility, dependence, servitude.

Only the weak are strong. And thus, my fear has strengthened me, as I have been pushed, ever more into the loving arms of My Father, who holds me as I cry. Let’s not miss the opportunity that our fear points us toward.

Don’t panic. I’m with you. The Message

Let’s rejoice in our fear because we have been pushed, more often and more deeply, into His arms of comfort. What are you afraid of, sister, brother? Come and be comforted in the arms of the greatest comforter, so that you too may be a comfort to others with the comfort you have received.

What is one step that the Father may want you to take today, to live out of love, and no longer out of fear? How can your fear strengthen you, as you remember that it is the weak that are actually strong?

Jesus Guided, Through Food, To Heal A Child’s Diagnoses

/ Lori Lawe / 2 Comments

Like a gentle wind, warm, encircling me, comforting, I heard Him speak. Not unlike a confirmation in the heart. Pay attention, He seemed to whisper. Our physical bodies tell our minds, too, when it is time to run or to fight – eyes dilated, heartbeat pumping, energy surging. Pay attention.

So it is in the spiritual realm.

He spoke as a spiritual whisper as my friend mentioned a diet she had used for her child. The GAPS diet. Her child had symptoms that were completely opposite to our daughter’s. In fact, we weren’t even sure that our daughter had any real symptoms. Wasn’t she just a late bloomer?

Pay attention.

So I bought the book. I bought two books, actually- Gut and Psychology Syndrome which outlines the GAPS diet, and Nourishing Traditions. For many people, these books go together, like two sides of an Oreo cookie. The cream in the middle, the glue, is the person implementing the suggestions in the book.

Me.

Would I look at the pages over tea, and relegate the cookbooks to the back of my shelf, or would I roll up my sleeves and get to work?

I rolled up one sleeve, partway, and implemented a few suggestions. After the tea, the suggestions seemed hard. Too much to change. And why? I relegated the books to the back of the bookshelf where they collected dust for many years. “I tried, God.”

Many years later, the doctors gave us a list of diagnoses they wanted to label our child with. Ouch. A smack in the rear. A wake-up call. Maybe she was going to have a harder time than some other kids doing the regular things of life. Understanding school. Making close friends. Riding a bicycle. Not being racked with random stomach pains.

And the heart of a mother emerged, out of desperation. Pay attention. Heartbeat racing, ready for action, energy surging – how can I help my daughter? Eyes dilating – where do I focus? The heart of a mother, her desire to help her child, is a force to be reckoned with.

Get out of my way.

“All of those diagnoses are listed on the front cover of that book you bought”, that same friend reminded me. Oh yes. Were they? Where were those books anyway?

And so a journey began. A journey with Jesus, Him holding my hand, urging me onward, together, with Him. This time I was ready to hold His hand, to walk in His direction.

Desperation made me humble.

I’m ready now, to try anything.

And today, years later, we have a remarkable story of a child thriving in joy and in physical, mental, and social strengths.

None of the labels stuck to her in ways that were expected, praise be to God.

It turns out that science is increasingly backing up this nudge from the wind of God, too, but that is a discussion for another day.

God, help us to take your hand as You long to lift us from despair concerning the struggles our children encounter. We desperately need your guidance.

Help us to roll up our sleeves, and to do the hard, counter-cultural work that we may need to do, to allow healing food to help some of our children with some of their struggles, we pray.

Pretend You Don’t See My Mess, Please – I Prefer Bondage

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

Jealousy. Green sticky goo must come out of me somehow. I am jealous. I hide my hands behind my back. A cover-up; I will pray for you. But behind my back the goo leaks. No one notices until the puddle of goo forms at my feet.

I stand back in shock. That must be someone else’s jealousy I am standing in! I take a step to the left in horror, trying to kick the green goo off my feet, legs, trying to be free. My friend smiles at me compassionately. She understands that the green goo couldn’t possibly be mine. I am HER friend! She stands in a puddle of her own goo. I pretend not to notice.

And so the mutual self-denial is edifying. Let’s bow our heads, hold hands in unity, and pray for the one that we esteem so highly. We are spiritual. We aren’t jealous. But when we are done, our hearts pump specks of charcoal throughout our bodies. Death has touched our hearts. We won’t speak of our sin, and so our sin holds us captive.

But in my room at night, where no one can see, I cry out to God in desperation. God, look at the state of my heart! It is singed with death! I try to pray, but my prayers go up in smoke. Can you help me? Name it, He speaks, gently. Name why your heart is smoldering now, a smoking log and not a blazing fire.

Looking down in shame, I speak. “I am jealous.” And the Lord dances. He dances with joy, pulling me out of my despair to join Him. Well done, he whispers softly into my ear. And I am joyful. Like a toddler covered in mud, who made a mess of their surroundings, I am free. The mud washes off, easily.

My mess does not define me. I am defined by Him, the truth, because I speak the truth. I see myself through His eyes, forgiven, when I am honest with Him, myself, others. Not overly self-deprecating. Not hiding. Just honest.

I bring my problems, like a difficult math question to my Father, for help. “Why am I jealous?” I ask Him. He points to weeds in the garden of my heart that I have neglected to uproot, yes, but He also shows me that there is green goo in the air, everywhere in our culture. I breathed it in, and it took root, simply because from grade school, we compare the one to the other. An unhealthy system has infected me as well.

And it doesn’t matter, actually, why I am ill, or how I contributed to the growth of the ugly mess. The doctor has come, to innoculate me with His love. And I can dance again.

And so the next time that my friend and I stand in pools of our own making of green sticky goo, I can get out the broom, the one that Jesus gave me. I can offer to show my friend how Jesus helped me clean up my life, to sweep away the goo. Do you want to borrow the broom? Holding the broom with Him, you and He can sweep away your goo, too. And He will dance with joy, as your heart is revived, refined a little more. And we are free to soar.

We don’t have to hide.

If we claim that we’re free of sin, we’re only fooling ourselves. A claim like that is errant nonsense. On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing. The Message

Consider asking God if there is any strange goo at your feet that you don’t want to see. Holy Spirit, set us free, we pray. May we be courageous enough to see ourselves the way we really are, so that our eyes can begin to see with clarity the vision You have for our futures, as we connect our lives to You, we pray.

Did You Find A Crumb Of Hope For Your Teen Yet Today?

/ Lori Lawe / 1 Comment

The dawn of a new day. I can sense the inspiration.

A blank page.

A new life.

The possibilities are endless. We are inspired.

Parents spend thousands of dollars on baby clothes, cribs with matching wall decor, and expensive lotions for baby’s butt. We are inspired. The possibilities are endless. We haven’t messed this up yet.

We have hope.

But in the depths of the dark of night, on the page that has been written on, crossed out, erased, for the teenager who has messed up big time, inspiration and possibilities seem like a closed book. Every corridor that can be walked down from here seems dark, foreboding.

For the sullen teenager, a disappointment, we toss her an iPhone and watch her walk to her room. His life feels like the depths of night, right now. We must have messed up as parents. We spend less time with her and feel more frustrated. The dark corridors all seem to point to the same place, the place we don’t want to travel down. This is your journey, we say.

Good luck.

But what if his silence is imploring you to walk down the darkest of corridors with him? What if the light at the end of the tunnel will be so bright, so warm, that it will heal your soul too? What if the savior of your kids’ life isn’t you after all, but is the One through whom all things are made? What if, at the end of the journey, you find a piece of your soul?

And so we pray, on our knees, for our lost son, forgotten daughter. We pray until our hearts are transformed. We pray until we have some extra love left over, poured out to us from the Father, to give to our children.

We pray until we can find a tiny bit of hope to grasp onto, and then we continue our journey, offering a morsel of hope to our child when the opportunity arises. And we pray some more.

And in the transformation of ourselves, a tiny bit piece of beauty comes from ashes. The possibilities are endless for us and for our children. They are, like a new life, even this day, as are we. The page written on, erased, still has room for new words. Hope is born this day. And all is well with the world. I nourish my soul with today’s food and pass on a crumb to my child. It is enough to sustain her, for today. And He is pleased with His child, with you.

Oh! May the God of . . . hope fill you up with joy, fill you up with peace, so that your believing lives, filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, will brim over with hope! The Message

God, though we have left a trail of continual failing as parents, and though our teens look back on a similar trail of constant failing, You never stop reaching your arm of love down to us and helping us to stand, again, to keep walking. Would you help us up again today, to continue our journey as parents, though we are tired and discouraged? And may we show the same grace to each of our children we pray.