Tag Archives: friendship with self

Prayer, Revised and Expanded

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My journal takes me back in time. September 25, 2015. Thirty years old. Married ten years. Two daughters—Kyli two months past her first birthday, and Kayt a month shy of her third. That means on the day I wrote this prayer I had a one-year-old and a two-year-old. No surprise that “broken,” “scared,” “no match,” and “tired” feature in this heart-cry, penned during a rare stolen moment. My heart bled out through the ink of my pen. I turned to the page and to my heavenly parent, because together they were the safest place I knew.

April 17, 2024. Thirty-eight years old. Married 18 years. Kyli and Kayt are now 9 and 11. We’re deeply settled into the house we were in the process of purchasing in 2015. And I’m writing, which I now realize is not only a safe place for me, but also a creative passion.

Today I’ll respond to myself in this prayer. A spiritual journey is a both/and experience, dense with contrast and contradiction. And so today maybe I disagree with my thirty-year-old self, but my experience and beliefs then were as valid as my experience and beliefs now.

Truthfully, I haven’t been writing spiritual content much recently. I’m weary of cultural Christian ideas, the sin-and-salvation language, the beliefs that tied my hands behind my back. But set all that aside, and there is a friendship. Prayer is a celebration of friendship.

Good morning, Lord.

I am in a place I know You do not intend for me to be. I’m literally sick with worry. I can’t stop my head from spinning and my heart from panicking. Please speak truth to my heart and save me from myself.

You can be in this place. It’s okay to not be okay. You won’t feel this way forever. And yes, keep believing there are better things ahead. You are held.

I believe the solution is walking with You, but I can’t even do that. I am so broken, so scared, so selfish. Please do it for me, Lord. Take my heart, take my marriage, take my parenting, take my responsibilities at church and book group and other places, take the move to the new house, take meal planning and grocery shopping, take the lies that cripple me. Take my heart of stone and replace it with a heart of flesh.

What does it look like to “walk with God”? You are beautiful and your life is beautiful. You are worn out. Ask for help. Take medication. Drink coffee. Watch TV shows. Cry. Plan a day for yourself—that is not selfish. Your heart of flesh is already there. And this grieving might be just the thing to help you find it.

I confess my selfishness, my desire for control, my fears, my misbeliefs. They are sin and they do not honor You. Please take them from me. Please fight this fight for me. I am no match for sin, no match for the devil, no match for life.

Overwhelmed, flooded, depressed, alone, trapped. You feel these things deeply. You are stronger than you think, and not as strong as you think. You might have to let get of what you’re holding tight, and holder tighter to the things you’ve been letting go. Don’t know what that means? Don’t fret. God really does have your back, and She’s not the least bit disappointed.

I can do nothing … but isn’t that a good thing? For Your strength is made perfect in weakness [2 Corinthians 12:9]. Please hedge me behind and before and lay your hand upon me [Psalm 139:5]. Please take away my addiction to negative emotions. Teach me to rejoice in Your victory in my life, to give You the glory, to have a heart of thanksgiving.

These things you dream of will happen. You will learn to enjoy feeling happy, to like yourself, to feel gratitude and joy.

Lord, I am lonely. I am broken. I am too self-centered to see the beauty of You and the many good gifts You are showering on me daily. I surrender to You, Lord. Please save me from myself, Lord.

God will save you from yourself by introducing you to your true self. It’s okay to be lonely and broken. You are also brave and kind and capable.

I need time with You daily in prayer and in the Bible but I feel helpless to make that time. Please do it for me.

God loves to spend time with you. She hears you.

Thank You that You see me as I am and love me. I am so tired of myself. I am so grateful that You are not overwhelmed by my brokenness. Thank You that You use brokenness for Your glory. Give me a testimony that will draw others to You. Lord, if I need a mentor, please provide.

Keep speaking these truths. And when you’re too tired to speak them, the Spirit will speak them for you. You don’t need a testimony; you are a testimony. And you always will be.

I am terrified of the day ahead of me. Take this from me, Lord. Give me eyes of faith. Remind my heart to lay everything at Your feet and let You do the heavy lifting. I want to take Your yoke upon me and learn of You, and accept the rest You promise [Matthew 11:29]. I want to be Your servant and friend so that others will be drawn to You.

Oh dear one, these days are so long and so hard. I see you. You can do hard things. And God is teaching you to rest, even now.

Thank You for my brokenness, thank You for trials and difficult times. Thank You that You are enough and everything else is a cherry on top. I choose by the power of Your Spirit to abide in You. Please let me be a branch today. [John 15:4, 5]

Way to go! You are receiving with open hands. But you know, “everything else” is the stuff life is made of, and it’s okay to want it to feel lighter. You are a branch. You are a badass. Many good things are coming for you, and one day you will feel excited about what the day holds. In the meantime, go get some coffee.

Morning Pages

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Writing and prayer are, for me, inextricably linked. Pat Schneider said it well: “When I begin to write, I open myself and wait. And when I turn toward an inner spiritual awareness, I open myself and wait.”

In the course of living, I often disconnect from myself. I disconnect to stay operative, and it can be difficult to coax my spirit out of hiding. If I feel, will I still be able to function?

I’m reading two of Julia Cameron’s honest and encouraging books on the creative pursuit, and have been initiated to Morning Pages. Julia swears by them—three pages of longhand, stream-of-consciousness writing every morning, for the rest of your life. This practice puts you in touch with yourself, clears the racket in your head, lets you listen to the Spirit and to your own heart. “As we write,” Julia says, “we come know to ourselves, and increased tenderness to the self we are discovering is the reward.”

I’ve not made Morning Pages a daily habit, but when I do them, I find they deliver the promised effects.

My Morning Pages on June 2 were a ramble about ducklings and the kids’ last day of school. I wrote one page, then got scared: “How do I feel inside? Time to go shower …”

The next morning, it was time to come out of hiding.

June 3, 2023
I guess I’ll start today where I left off yesterday. With my heart. “Go ahead and come out, heart. This is a safe place.” Did some fear send my heart packing? When? How? It seems sudden that I have lost access to myself. But I know it can’t be. Am I running from heaviness? How does one keep a practical balance within one’s heart? Listen and feel, but not descend into the heaviness, never to rise? Maybe I’ve forgotten about my center. Is there really a still place in the middle of all this drama? A place to rest without shutting everything down or solving anything? “The present is safe,” Spirit says. My head is trying to protect my heart. My heart is trying to be small so I can get things done and look functional. But I am not lost in this stormy sea. The girls came downstairs so I moved upstairs. I sat down in my “prayer chair.” I turned my chair to look out a different window. I’m fantasizing about the marriage book I’m going to write. I’m listening to the ducklings and thinking they need their water refilled soon. I’m staring at nothing. I’m listening to the ceiling fan. I’m closing my eyes. I hear the mourning dove and think of the nest we had this spring. K is calling me from downstairs. Now she has come to ask if she can watch PJ Masks with her sister. She’s dressed only in underwear, and in their pretend game she has just hatched from an egg. She holds her hands under her chin in a chipmunk-like pose and speaks adorable gibberish, until I decipher “watch” and “PJ Masks.” It’s before 8am on a Saturday and I’d have to give special permission on Kayt’s iPad, so I say no. I’m starting to thaw here a little bit. I am safe with myself, my journal, God, Michael, and ultimately, with everyone and everything. K’s caterpillars are getting fat. I think God saved their lives. I guess (know) it’s safe to be me, and this day is very doable. Just show up, and then again.

Morning Pages are wonderful, rambling therapy. They are the healing experience of being seen. They are a permission slip to be human. Writing is a gentle and whimsical pathway to the inner self, which I once thought to access with a hammer and chisel, but which actually comes forward like a squirrel—shyly, with worried chirps and false starts. I must sit still. When the squirrel’s tiny paws rest on my fingertips, I feel a sense of wonder. I—brute that I am—receive the trust of another creature. So it is with my own spirit. I cannot use force to gain passage; I must sit quietly and observe with rapture that I am alive. And when I see myself alive, feel the pulse in my own fingertips, I know I will probably be okay.

~ Quotes are from Pat Schneider’s book, “How the Light Gets In,” and Julia Cameron’s book, “Write for Life.”