When Prayer is Bad - Part II (a)

Growing up in church, I was taught very clearly how I was to interact with God.  I was to:

1.  pray
2.  pray every day
3.  pray as long as possible

And while all of this is true, somehow I missed the truth in it in my attempt to do it.

I tried to pray every day.  I failed miserably cause I could only manage to do it a few to many times a week, never or rarely daily.  I beat myself up over this.  Why couldn't I be faithful? Consistent? What was wrong with me?

This went on for several years, until I realized that my perspective was all wrong:  I was looking at prayer as an item to check off my Christian To Do List.  I knew that it had to be more than that, and I wanted it to feel that way.  So I prayed a simple prayer:  "God, if I miss a day of prayer, can you just help me to feel the loss of not interacting with You, versus the guilt from not interacting with You?"

A few months later, while walking to the water cooler at work, I blurted out, "God, I miss you.  I haven't prayed in two days!"  I stopped in my tracks, remembering my request.  It had happened.  My heart had changed.  Now, prayer felt more like a relational interaction than a mandatory task to be completed.

I came to see prayer as time I got to be with the Creator; the Creator's time to be with me.  Feeling that has made all the difference over the years, whether I pray every day, miss a day (or a few), or pray only for five minutes.

NOW is the Time

"The richest place in the world," he said, "is the graveyard." As a teenager, I was captivated by this man and his message.  His words attached to something deep inside of me, catapulting me to where I am today.  Dr. Myles Munroe's central message of the importance of fulfilling your God-given purpose planted seeds not just in me, but in millions around the globe.  

I aspire to be like him:  a woman who knows her purpose, pursues it, and helps others do the same.  And I aspire to leave this earth the same way that he did:  on my way to do what I was created to do.

Rest in His Presence, Dr. Munroe, knowing that you fulfilled your God-given purpose.

Integrity Sucks

Yeah, I said it.  Integrity sucks because you can't just do what you want to do.  You can't just do what serves you in the moment.  You have to be subject to someone or something:  the truth, God, your conscience...

A few weeks ago, I was walking back to my car, which was parked on Arizona Avenue in Santa Monica, CA.  (Now, I have parked my car in this area two times a week for the last year.)  As I got closer to my car, I noticed a white piece of paper stuck under my windshield wiper.  "It can't be a ticket," I thought.  "I'm not parked illegally."  But yes, it was a ticket, and yes, I was parked illegally.   The sign above my car clearly read, "Permit required." "What?!"  For months I had parked a few car lanes from this spot, and there was no sign there.  

So here I am, holding a $62 ticket in my hand, and I am enraged.  The guy on the balcony above me yelled out, "Contest it!  Tell them there wasn't a sign there."  And for a few minutes, I think about doing it.  I am on a tight budget, and $62 is a lot of money to pay because I didn't see a sign.  But, I feel a pull on the inside of me to live with integrity and decide to not contest it.  It takes me nearly two weeks, however, before I go online to pay it cause the thought of giving the city of Santa Monica $62 for an honest mistake feels incredulous and kind of unjust (If I dare use the word "justice" to describe a matter so trivial.) But I pay it, begrudgingly.

The next week I head into the 99cent store by my house to pick up a few items.  I'm at the checkout, and my items are being rung up, but I tell the cashier that I will be right back and quickly run to the next aisle to grab some gum.  I come back, she gives me the total, and I pay with my debit card.  I'm turning to walk away when she asks whose gum it is that she's about to ring up.  I say "Mine."  She looks a little annoyed and instead of ringing it up, hands it to me.  I'm walking towards the door and am like, "Did she just GIVE me that gum, without ringing it up?  Well.. it must be okay, since she did it and she works here."  But as I get closer to the door, I realize that taking it would be stealing, even if she did hand it to me.  So, I take the gum out of my bag and stick it on a boxes of Pringles stacked next to the exit.

Why do I share these two stories?  Because sometimes, integrity sucks.  It is inconvenient.  You don't get what you want.  You have to take the long route when you're in a rush.  You have to pay money that you don't really have.  But what makes it worth it is knowing that God sees you, and knowing that you are being trained to be trustworthy in any situation-whether people are watching or not.

When Prayer Is Bad - Part I

I was taught that prayer is always good—that we are to always pray and that our prayers are powerful.  And while all of this is true, I’ve recently started to see how prayer can be bad.  Let me explain.

During prayer one evening in December of 2013, God showed me that my prayers were all wrong.  For several months I had been asking God questions about my love life—was He sending me someone whom I could love and start a family with or was He leading me on a life-long adventure that would involve just the two of us?  Although I could see enjoying either scenario, seeing the joys and challenges that each presented, I really wanted to know,  and I knew that God could tell me,  just like He told me that I would work in entertainment six years before I went on my first audition.

Now while it’s ironic that God showed me that my prayers were wrong while I was praying, what is also noteworthy is that I wasn’t even praying about my love life in that specific moment.  I was actually praying about the disappointment that I felt about a film that I was set to “star” in being postponed.  (For those of you unfamiliar with how the business of entertainment works, “postponement” in Hollywood can mean many things.  It can mean just what it suggests, that the project will take place at a later date, either months or years later, or it can mean what it often means, which is that there is some hiccup (usually financial) and that it will never happen but the producers are either too hopeful to realize it or too proud to admit it.)

Well after I found out that the film had been “postponed,” I began to feel the weight of the disappointment.  Only six days away from walking onto set, I was mentally and emotionally prepared to take on my character. I had cleared my schedule, learned my lines, developed my character, rehearsed with the other actors, hired a coach, done the table read, and worked with the make-up artist to figure out how to age me for the role.  I was ready.   And then I learned that I didn’t need to be.  Well…not yet … or… maybe never?  I didn’t know how to handle the news.  I knew that projects could disappear suddenly and had experienced them falling through before, but this was my first lead role in a film, and I had spent months preparing.  I deflated and then I cried.  I quickly told myself to just assume that the film was dead; it was easier to deal emotionally if I assumed that it was over rather than continuing to hope only to be disappointed again down the road.

But as I told myself that it was over, I realized what I was doing: I was trying to protect myself.  And in that moment I realized that I had to make a choice: either I could tell myself that the film was dead so that I could protect myself, or  I could maintain hope that it would still happen and trust that God would take care of my emotions, even if the project fell through. 

I decided to trust God.  So during that prayer time, as I was asking God to help me deal with the disappointment—both real and potential—I asked Him to show me ways that I was trying to protect myself in other areas of my life.  That’s when He brought up my romantic life.  He began to show me that my prayers during the last several months had been wrong.  I had been asking Him to speak to me about my love life because I wanted His words, (whether a “yes” or a “no”), to protect me from the potential disappointment that the future held.  If He said “yes, I have someone for you,” then I could continue to hope.  If the answer was “no,” then I would know to grieve now and move on, preparing myself for a life of singleness.

No wonder He hadn’t answered me for all of those months: My prayer was all wrong.  I was looking to his “prophetic words” to instantaneously calm the part of me that feared experiencing tremendous disappointment, instead of trusting in the essence of who God is, which is goodness. 

Today, I no longer pray for God to reveal the future to me, (although I’m open to it).  Instead, I ask Him to help me experience this Psalm daily “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…” –Psalm 23:6

My prayer is that I too would be willing to give up my freedom and life so that others can experience the love and freedom that God desires for them.

2012: The Year I Gave Up Everything

In 2005, I prayed the words found in Philippians 3:10, to God: “That I may know him (Christ), and the power of his resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death.”  It was a heartfelt prayer, prayed sincerely, but quite naively because that prayer ushered in a year containing unparalleled levels of suffering and general havoc.  It was crazy.  I told myself to never pray for such things again, but I forgot and 2012 was the most intense, inane year of my life!  It was the year that all of my prayers caught up with me and words that once seemed like idyllic requests (praying that I would love God more than I could ever love any man and praying that my external success would never exceed my internal character) suddenly seemed like very, very bad thought-out prayer requests.

Yes, I prayed to love God more than I could ever love anyone else, but I didn’t foresee having to deal with a painful break-up with one of the most wonderful, godly, frabjous people I have ever had the pleasure of knowing, and then going through the process of becoming truly grateful to God for the break-up.

And yes I prayed for both success in the arts/entertainment plus the internal fortitude to handle it, but I didn’t realize that shooting five national commercials, conducting red carpet interviews, and taking on new writing assignments with print and online publications would be preceded by:

·         Incessant crying (crying during sermons, crying while praying, crying while driving, crying on my way to set.  It got so bad I stopped wearing mascara.)

·         Unprecedented levels of pain and confusion that made me decide to stop thinking so that I could stay sane.

·         Feeling like the rudder on my internal ship was in the repair shop and couldn’t be used, leaving me feeling like a ship without a rudder.

·         Letting go of EVERYTHING.

Also, I didn’t anticipate that in 2012 I would book the two most amazing gigs of my career (including an international project that would shoot in another country and a national talk show pilot) only to lose both within the time span of eight days.

The pain of loss, the pain of almost gaining and losing, and even the pain and cost that come with gaining pushed me not just to my knees, but to a place of trying to learn why God does the things that He does.  A new theology formed (and is forming), and I have been pressed to a place where I’m asking God “Teach me how to pray.”  That’s my prayer as I enter 2013, but this time I pray with my eyes wide open.  I know that it won’t be all roses, although the Tournament of Roses Parade suggests that it should be, but I also know that the joy birthed from pain is the most wonderful kind of joy there is.

What’s your prayer for this year? Know that God doesn’t just hear prayers. He answers them!

Happy New Year! 

Dealing with Disappointment

Several blog posts ago, I wrote about securing a TV job, but being fearful that it would fall through, leaving me disappointed.  Well, the job did fall through; the network pulled out just three weeks before I was supposed to leave the country.  I was disappointed, (and I cried once), but I kept it pushin' cause life goes on, right?  Three days later I learned that I had booked another TV job--this one a pilot for a national cable talk show.  I was elated... until three days before we were scheduled to shoot, when I learned that that network had pulled out as well.  Once again I was disppointed, only this time I cried for a week and a half.

As I grieved the second loss, I began to grieve the first loss more, plus I began to grieve other losses that I had experienced through my life recently, particularly in my romantic life.   (Yeah, it kinda all snowballed.)  I realized, while writing on the tear-stained pages of my journal, that my losses weren't the biggest ones that someone could endure.  I wasn't facing the loss of a home, or my health, or a loved one.  But still, there was a deep sense of loss and sadness. 

So I allowed myself to feel the loss, and I decided to be really honest with God.  I told Him how disappointed I was, and asked Him to comfort me and infuse me with hope that believes that through it all He is good and will continue to be good to me, no matter what losses I endure.

Death Friday

Recently one of my friends lost her son to cancer.  And while I can’t imagine the pain and heartache that she must be feeling, I do know the pain of death—death of a loved one, death of a relationship, death of a dream.

Death changes everything.

It has a way of wrapping itself around you and demanding more—more of your emotions, your joy, your peace, and your hope.  Death is a jealous enemy, coming after you and all you cherish with no conscious. 

No one likes death, and most people fear it.  This is why I was blown away tonight when I read Mark 15:3-5: “The chief priests accused him of many things.  So again Pilate asked him, ‘Aren’t you going to answer?  See how many things they are accusing you of.’  But Jesus still made no reply, and Pilate was amazed.”  Faced with the sentence of death, Jesus refused to try to save himself.  He faced death, fearless.

And then He died.

I don’t know what it must have been like to be one of Jesus’ followers.  But I imagine that it had to be heartbreaking and baffling to see the man who had performed miracles, including raising people from the dead, killed.  It must have been mind-bending and heart-numbing, especially for his disciples, for they had left everything (their homes, jobs, and families) to follow him, and for what?

They were crushed, and rightfully so. Who wouldn’t have been?  I take some comfort in the disciples’ mourning Jesus death because it reminds me that grieving is one of the things that connects us to the rest of humanity.

But I can’t help but remember that the disciples mourning, although understandable, was in vain, for Jesus’ death was only temporary, just like He had told them it would be.  He had predicted his death and resurrection to them, but they hadn’t understood what He had meant.  And if they had, they wouldn’t have had to have mourned. Instead, they could have celebrated that his prophecy was being fulfilled!

(I do realize that not mourning someone’s death in anticipation of their resurrection is extremely difficult to do and potential grounds for committing someone to the crazy house, but isn’t that the point? Wasn’t Jesus trying to teach them (and us by extension) to have a new kind of faith—one that shatters our perceptions of life and death and ushers in a new way of being and thinking?)

My faith is strengthened as I reflect on this story.  I can look at the dead things in my life and know that Jesus might want to resurrect them.  I can know that death doesn’t have to rob me of my joy and hope.  All I have to do is listen to see what Jesus is saying to me.  Is He saying that the death is temporary? Is He saying that He will comfort me through the death?

This Good Friday, I am reminded that death is not always the end.  It can be the beginning of seeing something miraculous.

Happy Death Friday!

Is There Such a Thing as Perfect Faith?

For years, I've thought that I was a woman of faith--someone who could believe God, despite the circumstances.  But recent events have left me questioning my faith and my understanding of faith.

In Scripture, we see people doubting God's promises, but God still fulfilling those promises. We see this in the lives of Abram, Sarai, and Zacharias.  They doubted, but God still did what He promised.  But in the book of Mark, we see Jesus not doing miracles because of people's lack of faith.  And throughout the New Testament, we see exhortations to have faith and not doubt.

This leads me to wonder what exactly having faith means.  Is it the total absence of doubt?  Or is it overall trust in God, even if doubt creeps in sometimes?

I'm realizing that I've spent years trying to exercise a faith that is perfect, fearing what would happen if I didn't. 

Now my understanding of faith is changing.  I no longer think that my faith must be perfect.  Rather, I think that faith involves my taking my moments of doubt to God, and asking Him to speak into those doubts with His truth, and love, and grace.  I'm starting to think that the act of my taking myself (and fears and doubts) to God may be the only type of faith that God has ever asked me to have.

But For Real Though, God?

Today, I had one of those, “I can’t believe I thought that!” moments.  At 6:30pm tonight, the owner of my talent agency called me. He doesn’t call often (usually one of the other agents calls me), but when he calls, it’s usually really important. When he got me on the phone, he said, “You booked a job!”  Then he proceeded to tell me about the TV show that I had book, a show that will be filming for two weeks in Sydney, Australia.  Then he told me how much the job paid, but since this is the Internet and it’s best not to put all your business on it, all I’ll say is that it pays enough to cover my tuition for one year of grad school!  He gave me all of the details, and I didn’t say a word.  I just wrote down what he was telling me.  He was shocked by my response. “You’re not screaming. I just told you that you’re gonna make $$$$ a day, and you’re so calm.”  He was right. I was calm.  But it wasn’t because I have a naturally calm disposition. I was quiet because I didn’t believe him.  He asked, “Well, what do you think? How do you feel?”

And do you know how I responded? I said, “I feel like I’m being punk’d.” And then he told me that I was not being punk’d.  But thinking back, of course he was serious. Agents don’t waste their time calling their clients to pretend that they booked gigs. 

Once I hung up the phone, I allowed the reality of what he had told me to sink in…I began to cry. Could it be true? Could I have booked such a big gig? Could I have amassed, in one phone call, a year’s worth of tuition?  I had prayed that God would give me tuition money, and I wanted to believe it, but it felt unreal. So, I decided not to get my hopes up. In the world of entertainment, it’s common to book a job, only to find out the next week that they decided to hire someone else, or that the project got cancelled, or whatever.  I told myself not to get too excited because it could change at any moment. “Celebrate once you get on the plane,” I told myself.

While praying a few hours later, I saw that I was really reserved in how I thanked God for the job. Normally, I would have jumped up and down, and maybe started to sing a song of praise, but I just sat in my prayer chair, praying quietly. And that’s when I realized that I didn’t believe it.  Yes, my agent had told me that the job was mine (once I passed a physical), but I didn’t believe him.  A part of me feared that the deal would fall through—that the other shoe would drop.  Believing would only cause me unnecessary pain once I found out that the job wasn’t mine.  Suspending belief, however, would enable me to evade pain and disappointment.

And then I realized that this is how I’ve been relating to God as of late.  I haven’t believed what He has told me.  I have listened quietly, and I have suspended belief because I have wanted to protect my heart from believing, just in case God doesn’t come through.

While this is hard for me to write, it is the truth.  I find that I struggle now more to believe God than I ever have before.  But I know that God is not a liar. “God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?” (Numbers 23:19)  

My challenge is to believe what is promised, but is not-yet.  I figure that if I can choose to trust my agent, who is a man, then surely I can trust God, who is God.  I must remember that “faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

So today, as an act of faith, I declare to all reading in the blogosphere that I am going to Australia!  Yippee!

Putting It All On the Line

Young children are the most honest creatures that exist.  They say exactly what they think, and shout out exactly how they feel. They don't know any better!  They haven't yet learned how to be evasive; they haven't learned how to bite their tongues to avoid hurting others' feelings.

As I enter 2012, I am tapping into my inner-honest child. I'm seeing how much I impede my progress and hence my life, when I'm not honest.  When I fail to acknowlege what I really want, or how I really feel, for fear of how it will sound or whom it might unintentionally hurt, the person who gets hurt the most is me.
So, I'm being completely honest with myself, with God, and with those around me about what I want in life.  Some might be hurt, and others disappointed, but I'm willing to live with those consequences.

I do recognize that once you say what it is that you really want, you chance not getting it and being really disappointed.  That's okay.  The part of me that's a grown-up can handle disappointment.  If she doesn't get what she wants, she will cry, and then cry some more, but she will regroup, recover, and charge ahead again, her hand placed securely in God's.  That's what grown-up children do.

Portrait of God's Love

I grew up going to church, so for my entire life, I’ve heard how much God loves me.  But still, as an adult, sometimes I find myself grasping to feel God’s love, although I know it’s there, ensconcing me.

I’m always delighted when I encounter pictures of God’s love, brief snapshots of his grace.  Here’s one:

Growing Something New

I am growing a small herb garden. Well, actually I am trying to grow a small herb garden. I say "trying" because I am not at all sure if I am doing it correctly. Where's a mentor when you need one? I know that there is a lot of information on the Internet, yes thousands of pages devoted to teaching overwhelmed stay-at-home moms and retired persons how to become semi-professional horticulturalists, but I learn best by seeing and then doing. I miss the days where you learned how to do something by learning from someone who had mastered it. I want someone to be my apprentice.

So, like I said, I started this garden. It's new. It's so new that it hasn't even seen daylight because it was planted thirty minutes ago. I'd like to share a few things that struck me as I planted.

First, I was amazed at how teeny, tiny the seeds were. I mean you could mistake them for drops of dirt if you didn't know better. If I saw them on my kitchen counter, I would undoubtedly think that they were crumbs, wondering which of my housemates had failed to wipe off the counter... Holding the seeds in my hands carefully, so that they didn't fall, it was hard to fathom that herbs and plants could spring forth from things so miniscule in size.

With joyful visions of basil and oregano filled dishes dancing in my head, my excitement began to wane once I read how long it would take for them to grow. I wouldn't see any results for 1 1/2 to 2 months! Now while I recognized logically that this is not a long time, I was disappointed emotionally. I wanted an herb garden NOW! And if not now, then at least in two weeks!

Although still fairly young and definitely young at heart, I consider myself to be "old school." I like R&B more than rap, and I prefer having Ebony magazine delivered to me versus reading it online. But I felt like I was acting like one of my adolescent students when I became frustrated that something that takes months to cultivate wasn't happening instantaneously. I guess I'm not as mature as I thought.

Now I realize that this garden will require a new kind of patience, and maybe even a little perseverance. I say perseverance because I know myself. I will water the seeds day after day wondering if anything is  happening. After three weeks, I will question if I planted them properly.   Did I space them out enough?  After four weeks, I may allow myself to be convinced that I did something wrong. By week five, I will be tempted to abort my mission, convinced that I should focus on projects where success is guaranteed--like writing an article or performing before a packed auditorium.

Yes, all of this might transpire because I feel like I don't know what I'm doing. I've never done this before, and so I'm doubtful (yet still hopeful) about success. Perhaps this is because vestiges of perfectionism linger in my being, like microscopic leeches waiting to deplete the joy from my life.

I need a little faith. Not a lot, just a little. I know that one seed of faith, although small in size, will be great in presence.

My prayer for my garden is that it grows to provide nourishment for my friends and family. My prayer for myself is that God would grow my faith as I follow Him into new ventures, producing fruit from now until eternity.

What The Resurrection Means to Me

When I was a little girl, Easter was about new floral dresses, freshly pressed hair, and an Easter basket filled with Cadbury bunnies (You know the ones with the creamy centers?)  Dressed in our Sunday's best, my mom, dad, sister and I would go to church and celebrate Jesus' resurrection.

Now that I'm adult, Easter means so much more to me, and I find that each year brings a richer meaning.  Fully immersed in this third decade of life, my celebration of the Resurrection isn't mostly about the fact that I am forgiven of my many wrongs, flaws, and issues (AKA sin).  It isn't based solely on the fact that I am forever reconciled to my Father God through his son, Jesus Christ.  What I'm most excited for this Easter is the fact that because of Christ, I can also be reconciled to my neighbor--the one who odiously injured me and made me want to hit her. Again. Because of Christ's work on the cross, I can forgive her, when a part of me doesn't want to, because the rest of me knows that through Christ, I too am forgiven.  (So how then, could I not forgive?)

This Easter, I am excited that through Christ's work, black and white people can forgive each other for all past and present wrongs, and be reconciled in true love and brotherhood.

This Easter, I am happy that rich Christians can give generously to poor Christians, because as a part of Christ's reconciling body, we are one.

I am overjoyed this Easter that Jesus is truly the answer for every societal ill and every personal issue. He has dominated sin, and death, and every other icky thing in this life and beyond.  He is God. He reigns supreme.

This Easter, I am happy not only to be in his fold, but to know Him as a friend.  Happy Easter!

Making the Least of It

A few weeks ago, I entered the scariest season of my life.  I felt a mass in my right breast, and a cloud of questions and fears enveloped me, ironically clearing my vision.


Questions emerged: What if I only have one year left to live?  Two?  Three? What would I do? What would I not do?


I realized that I would:

• Hike, and Swim, and Be Outside more.
• Write more about my life following Jesus, as it has been the joy of my life.
• Smile.  Because smiling is so much more fun than frowning.
• Get married. (Cause I want to share my life with someone.)  And have sex.

I realized that I wouldn't:

• Worry about my life and future plans.
• Care about what people think about me. (Any more than I currently don't.)
• Buy many more material things. Instead, I'd just give the money away.
• Do any work that doesn't bring me joy.
• Complain about the end being near because every single day has been a gift from God.

So, instead of doing more with my life, I find myself wanting to do less.

Unnatural Disasters

Some things in life make sense:  falling in love, having kids, laughing with friends. Other things—like earthquakes, tsunamis, and catastrophic devastation—make no sense at all.  In fact, we can lose our minds trying to make sense of what is senseless: hundreds of lives lost in a matter of minutes, cities destroyed, two unforgiving back-to-back disasters.  We can go crazy trying to comprehend events that feel like scenes in a B-level, apocalypse-type movie: whole towns submerged in water, power outages, no cell phone access, and threats of nuclear disaster.

These events remind me that death, chaos, and mass destruction aren’t natural.  They are the most unnatural of circumstances, not at all what God intended for us when we were created.  The recent “natural” disasters in Japan elucidate what we all feel to be true: It was never meant to be this way.

Happy King Day, Baby!

There is a picture of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. that I keep on my desk.  In it, he wears a perfectly pressed black business suit, the portrait of sophistication and class.  The background is a dilapidated house, his childhood home.  The picture captures what King was all about: a new era of justice, bursting from an oppressive past.  

What impresses me most about King is not what he amassed—a string of degrees, a beautiful family, worldwide fame, and a name that will live on for generations.  What amazes me most about King is what he gave up—his family, his future, and his very life. 

I am amazed that a man who had so much was willing to give up so much, and that in the face of threats (two home bombings and twenty-nine jail cells), he continued preaching, continued fighting. He never backed down.  Where do we see that kind of sacrifice and suffering anymore?  Do we see that kind of sacrifice and suffering anymore?

As a middle-class, college-educated African American woman, a primary beneficiary of King’s fight and legacy, I pray that I can continue his dream, not just in what I amass, but in what I’m willing to give up for those suffering at the hands of injustice and poverty.  I pray that I am willing to give my time, my money, and if need be, my very life.  We are, after all, all God’s children.

“We must be reminded anew that God is at work in his universe.  He is not outside the world looking on with a sort of cold indifference.  Here on all the roads of life, he is striving in our striving.  Like an ever-loving Father, he is working through history for the salvation of his children.  As we struggle to defeat the forces of evil, the God of the universe struggles with us.”

-Martin Luther King Jr., King Came Preaching

For the past several years, I have observed a ritual each December.  Towards the end of the month, I have debriefed the ending year, listing everything I’m thankful to God for.  Then, I have prepared for the upcoming year by creating a vision, a list of goals, and strategies for achieving those goals.

This past December, I did none of this.

This is because in December of 2009, I committed to allowing God to give me new wineskins in 2010.  I felt that He wanted to serve me new, fresh wine, but that I needed new wineskins in order to have the capacity to accommodate it.

2010 didn’t disappoint with its bitter-sweet drinks. In 2010, I:

• made a major shift in my career focus
• let go of a long-held dream
• released myself from all of my goals and strategies for the last quarter of the year
• embarked on a new path—one replete with hope, but devoid of guarantees

In short, I changed one plan, aborted another, delayed still another, and now have no plan at all.  (And this is blasphemous for a woman who always has a plan, even if that plan is simply to not have a plan.)  Over the course of the year, I went from reluctantly sipping wine that seemed bitter to freely gulping what came to taste sweet to my palette.

On New Year’s Eve, I sat in church, hoping for an idea for my 2011 vision.  Unsurprisingly, nothing came to mind.

Nothing except one word: love.

So in 2011, I will love. And be loved.  I have no goals, no strategy, no plan.  All I have is my relationship with Love, master teacher and most patient lover.

What Would Oprah Do?

Ladies & Gents, she's done it again!  The Queen of Talk, Oprah Winfrey, AKA the Queen of Giving, has made television history by giving away the most elaborate collection of gifts, worth tens of thousands of dollars, to her studio audience during her Oprah's Favorite Things show.

For starters, instead of just hosting her usual Oprah's Favorite Things show, she hosted two of them—all for people who have shown extraordinary altruism in their lives.  

Then, she lavished her audience with gifts so amazing that the Paramedics were there on stand-by, just in case.

The first group received (among other things), a 7-day Royal Caribbean Cruise, a 3-D  Sony HDTV, and an Oprah 25th anniversary watch (worth nearly $2500).  The second group received an iPad, diamond earrings, and a Volkswagen 2012 Beetle.  In total, both audiences received forty-four gifts, ranging from items as practical as winter sweaters, to gifts as extravagant as diamond watches.

While hearing my mom enviously describe the gifts that O’s audience received, I couldn’t help but think that this is how God blesses us—in abundance, beyond what is socially acceptable, surpassing what has ever been done before. He blesses us both materially and spiritually, but sometimes it’s so much that others look on in disbelief, their eyes secretly coveting what we have, whether it’s our unexplainable peace or a new car.

In John 12, we see a woman named Mary pouring an expensive perfume (worth about a year’s wages) onto Jesus’ feet.  She is anointing Jesus, a lavish gesture, but the onlookers say that the gift is a waste, too much to give at once.  Thinking about this story, I can't help but think that this is her gesture of love, how she chooses to give to Him.  And this too is how He chooses to give to us.

What Would Jesus Do? He would and does give extravagantly, beyond what Ms. Winfrey and her sponsors are capable of.  Why?  To show us that He loves to give to us, that He is the ultimate gift giver.  A very Merry Christmas (and life) indeed.

The Sound of Silence

As I get older, I increasingly find it necessary and refreshing to occasionally pull away from everything familiar and refocus.  So on Thursday, I joined the Benedictine monks at the Prince of Peace Abbey Monastery in Oceanside, CA for a forty-eight hour retreat of silence and solitude.  My goal: to be with God and be still enough to hear his voice.

The monastery exudes quiet contemplation, the perfect place for a retreat. It sits high on a hill overlooking the city.  The hundred plus acres offer trails for walking and praying, as well as numerous sitting areas with calming views.  Guests can join the brothers for service five times a day: 1) 5 AM Vigils, 2) 7 AM Lauds, 3) 11 AM Mass, 4) 5 PM Vespers and 5) 8 PM Compline.

While strolling through the grounds, I felt like I was standing on holy ground, especially while in the stained glass chapel.  The space felt like it had been set aside for God, as if His spirit was ready to commune with mine.

I took the invitation seriously. I prepared for our communion: 

• First, I took a nap (cause it’s hard for me to hear God when I’m tired).
• Then, I ate (cause it’s hard for me to do anything when I’m hungry).

Alas, I was ready. I tried to clear my mind from distractions and open myself up to whatever God might say.  I sat and waited, but nothing happened.  I went from a walk, waiting while walking, but nothing happened.  Later on, I sat again, my ears perched in expectation, but still nothing.  Instead, my mind was filled with thoughts about work and questions about my love life. Not a problem, I thought.  It’ll just take a while for my head to de-clutter. 

The next morning, however, mirrored the night before.  Only this time, desires buried inside of my heart surfaced: the desire for companionship and the desire to be known.  They emerged passionately, pungently, demanding that I pay attention. I welcomed them, and the flood of tears that followed.  And then, I presented them to God in prayer. I sat and listened, still expectant.  I heard and felt nothing.

It was then, twenty-four hours into my retreat, that I realized that this might be all that the weekend had for me: an awareness of my desires, plus the realization that perhaps my mind was too cluttered with all kinds of stuff to be still enough to listen to anything other than itself.  Maybe I wouldn’t hear from God the way that I usually did. Maybe He wouldn’t speak at all.  In the silence, I became okay with this.  Not thrilled, but okay.  (See It Gets Sweeter.)  Simply being with Him would be enough for me this weekend.

On Saturday morning, with six hours remaining, I sat alone in the cafeteria. Coffee cup in hand, I felt a volcano of emotions inside of me, waiting to escape.  I knew that it needed to surface but that I couldn’t force it out. I didn’t even know what it was.

I walked into the chapel and sat on the floor.  I bowed to the ground, desperate to hear God, longing to feel Him.  And as I lay bowed before the altar, with a heart filled with reverence, I felt God say that I didn’t need to try to force Him to speak to me.  I didn’t need to bow, or open my heart, or try to quiet my mind the way I had been during the last two days.  All I needed to do was sit with Him.

So, I peeled my body off of the ground and just sat. I smiled, happy with God’s response.  And as I smiled, enjoying the fact that all I needed to do was enjoy God, I finally heard his voice.  All He said was, “I love you.”

It was one of the few times I have heard God say these words to me, piercing my being.  I allowed myself to take in the full weight of His words—that the Creator of the universe loves me and cares about me.  I cried softly, and then the volcano of emotions erupted until I wept, aloud, and then very loudly. I was no longer silent.  I stayed seated on the chapel floor for a while.   I sat with God and his love for me.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful.  I walked and prayed and napped.

As I allowed myself to rest in God’s love, I became assured that there was no reason for my mind and heart to be cluttered with the swirling questions and fear that had consumed me in the days prior.  My heart was in the hands of a God who loves me.

I drove down the hill, in silence, questions unanswered, but confident of God’s unending love for me.  He loves me so much that He isolated me from family, friends, and yes even myself, just to tell me so.