backwards prayers

I said I’d never do it again.  After my last garage sale a couple of years ago, I decided that it was too much work and not worth the reward.  But apparently garage sales are similar to childbirth, because over time I changed my mind.  We had a kitchen table and chairs, a twin bed, and a million smaller items that I was convinced wound be sure treasure for some lucky bargain hunters. Our friends dropped off a piece of furniture and a framed map of the world which sold in the first half hour, and by mid-morning, my garage sale fail began to really do a number on me.  I mean, what kind of world are we living in when you put all your tasteful junk in your driveway and people won’t even pay good money for it?

And it wasn’t just rejection that I felt.  I felt a sense of failure because I had made this garage sale into something much bigger than an outdoor purging event.  You see, during the summer, I work fewer hours.  Extra time at home with my kids is perfect for the summer, but my pay checks are smaller.  And our bills are bigger. School registrations. Property taxes due the 1^st of August. Drivers education and summer camps.  A family reunion in northern Michigan. And did I mention my sixth-grader got braces? Thousands of dollars of crisscrossed wire, pressure on teeth and pressure on our bank account.  So I decided I’d do something smart and productive, and show my kids that hard work and determination pay off.  I’d clean out our house and make a few bucks in the process. 

The first part of the morning was fun.  My husband, Bernie, my eleven-year-old daughter, Brenna, and I sat at our kitchen table at the end of our driveway and played Uno.  Then we had breakfast.  We were just getting started, and as I said a quick prayer of thanks for my toast and coffee, I slipped in a request for God to bless our garage sale and that we would sell lots of our stuff. After “Amen,” I looked around and muttered, “I sure hope I sell most of it.” 

That’s when Brenna casually challenged me.  “Mom, maybe you should try praying backwards.”

I was intrigued.  “Praying backwards?  What is that?  And where did you hear about it?”

“I read about it in the book I got at youth camp.  Praying backwards is when instead of asking God for what you want, you stop first and think about what Jesus wants. And you pray for that first.”

I stared at my daughter in stunned silence. What would Jesus want? It occurred to me that He might not care all that much if I sold my bed or table, my lamps or tea kettle. He would be much more interested in the people coming to my house.  He’d be looking for opportunities to interact with them, to hear their stories, and to share God's message of hope and love.  And, because Jesus had a history of engaging with all sorts of people and a gift for seeing past the exterior and into the heart, I think Jesus would be interested in what was going on in my heart. He’d want to talk about my anxieties and my tendency to try to control outcomes.

My garage sale was a ridiculous flop, and I was super frustrated and exhausted after hauling stuff back down to our basement and to the trunk of our minivan. When I finally collapsed into bed that night, I could not stop thinking about the backwards prayers.

I’ve been a Christian for a really long time. But Brenna’s words about how we approach prayer challenged me. The next day, I went into her room before bed and asked her to tell me more about what she was reading. The book she got at youth camp is called The Essential Guide to My New Life with Jesus, and it’s written by Scott Rubin, a long-time friend of ours and the junior high youth pastor at our church. She could hardly put it down. Scott has written several fantastic books for junior highers, and his style is easy and fun to read; if you have a middle school aged child, I highly recommend you get it. (Here is the link)

And then, do what I did, and read it yourself. Talk to your kid about it. It just might change your prayer life.

Praying backwards takes some getting used to. I’m becoming more aware of the fact that often times, my first instinctual prayer is about my own comfort or the comfort of those I love. It’s not that it’s bad to pray for these things—it’s certainly not wrong to ask God to bless my efforts and hard work at my garage sale, or in any other area of my life. But praying backwards invites us into something more. It asks us to look at what might be even more important than the immediate need we’re feeling.

As my daughter and I have talked about and practiced praying this way, we’ve seen some pretty cool things happen. I had been praying for a close friend of mine who had been treated unfairly and deeply wounded by a friend. I prayed for healing for her, and I imagined myself secretly confronting this person who caused such deep feelings of rejection and emotional pain. But when I asked myself, “What would Jesus want?” I wondered if my friend had forgiven this person. I was pretty sure Jesus would want my friend’s heart to be free from bitterness and unforgiveness, so I prayed along those lines. A few days later I was stunned when my friend told me that not only had she reached out to this person who had treated her so badly and offered to help her with a huge project, but she actually felt OK about it. While the relationship was not completely restored and the friendship didn’t return to the way it used to be, I saw tremendous growth in my friend. I watched as her heart was set free from resentment. I watched her forgive.

When praying for a family friend (and family members) who is battling cancer, Brenna prayed, “God, I pray that you would help them and that their hearts would be open to you.”

As a mom, my prayers for my daughters are changing as I think first about what Jesus wants. I still pray for protection and help and for things to go well for them, because I am a mom and that is what I desire. But I’m also praying for God to help them grow deep roots in His love when I see them hurting, for them to become more secure in Him when I see them battle insecurities, and for growth and maturity as I see them navigate their way through all sorts of changes, hurts, and struggles. I’m asking that in their anxieties they learn to trust God more. I’m praying that they shine bright like stars in the universe and hold out hope in a dark world, and that they love others well. I’m praying they grow closer to Jesus each day.

Jesus loves us. He wants us to be well. But that doesn’t mean that our constant, immediate comfort and happiness is at the top of His list of what He wants most for us. He wants us to be rooted and grounded in His truth and love. He wants us to follow Him and walk closely with Him each day. He wants us to learn how to trust Him, how to have true joy that doesn’t depend on what is happening around us, and He wants us to know Him better. And in our trials, He wants us to experience His strength in our weakness.

Our family friend, the one battling cancer, says that these days she is feeling grateful more than anything else. Because God is using her current trials to open her eyes to see all the good in her life, and she appreciates her time with her loved ones more than ever before. She is doing her best to let God lead her life every day.

I’m also grateful.  I am thankful for what I’m learning from my daughters, from my friends and from our junior high youth pastor. I’m thankful because God is always working in ways that go beyond what I could even ask for or imagine.

"Now to Him who is able to do immeasurably more 

than all we ask or imagine, 

according to His power that is at work within us, 

to Him be glory...Amen." 

Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

Stubborn for God

            I love Little House on the Prairie.  Always have, always will. (I tried really hard to get my 9-year-old daughter to dress up like Laura for Halloween this year, but she refused.)   I remember the location in my elementary school library where the Little House books were lined up in a beautiful, long row.  Little House in the Big Woods, On the Banks of Plum Creek, The Long Winter…week after week I happily followed the same routine: I would return one Laura Ingalls Wilder masterpiece and check out another. I loved the adventure, the hardships, the love and the simplicity of prairie life.

 

            When I got a little older, I regularly watched the television series after school.  The show, I thought, was even better than the books.  The characters were perfectly depicted by the actors, so much so that I didn't even think about them being actors at all.  They just seemed like the real people -- Pa, Ma, Laura, Mary, Carrie, and Grace -- living out their adventures right before my eyes.  Pa was so strong and loving.  Ma was so gentle and kind.  And the girls were so innocent and relatable.  The show tugged on all my heartstrings, and I learned good values about family and faith.  There were always obstacles to overcome, like a drought destroying the year’s crops, or Pa struggling to find work.  There were wagon accidents and barn fires, and if you saw the episode where Mary goes blind, you will never, ever forget it.  The biggest hardship of all, it seemed, was dealing with the Olesons.  Nels Oleson was a good man, but his wife, Harriet, was dreadful. Nellie was a thorn in Laura’s side, and Willie was always causing trouble (although I thought he was cute.)  No matter how hard things got, the Ingalls family pulled through.  I loved when Pa and Ma would eat fire-popped corn in bed, Mary and Laura would conspire with one another when they should have been going to sleep, and sometimes after dinner, Pa would play his fiddle while the girls clapped and danced around.

            My third daughter was born in early August, and that summer during the last couple months of my pregnancy there were two things I consistently craved: Dairy Queen and Little House on the Prairie.  We borrowed the DVDs from the library, binge-watching most of the nine seasons.  We had to skip several episodes because some of the story lines were traumatic and scary.  We got to where we could tell during the first few seconds of the show, because of the music they would play, if it was going to be happy, sad, or scary.

            In one episode Pa was away, working for the railroad, and Ma was overwhelmed with taking care of everything at home.  One night, after it had grown dark, she heard the animals riled up outside, and when she went out to check to make sure everything was OK, Laura and Mary followed her.  They were by the fence when Ma told the girls in a hushed, urgent tone to go inside.  They looked startled, but they immediately obeyed, quietly making their way back to the house, and it was a good thing they did, because there was a black bear in their front yard!  

            I realized with stunning clarity that night as I cuddled on the couch with my two daughters, that if that had happened in our yard to our family, the story would have ended differently.  See, if I would have told my strong-willed daughters, who were 6 and 4 at the time, to quietly go inside, they would have questioned me, and argued with me, and said, “No, I want to stay here with you.” And, “Why do we have to go inside??”  And little did I know that the baby in my enormous belly would have the strongest will of all of my daughters.  That bear would have eaten us for dinner!

            Everyone in our family is strong-willed in varying degrees.  I remember telling my Mom about how stubborn my daughters were, and she graciously reminded me that I was also strong-willed – in fact, the strongest-willed of her five children– and that she didn't view it as a bad thing.  It may have been challenging when I was little, but the upside was that as I got older, I was not easily swayed.  Sometimes that meant I stubbornly resisted new ideas and wasn't open to new things, like when the girls’ basketball coach tried to get me to play basketball in 7^th and 8^th grade (I was 5’8”), but I knew that I didn't want to do it.  I never even entertained the idea.  And sometimes it protected me from making bad choices, like in high school when someone close to me tried repeatedly to get me to smoke cigarettes - I had decided I wasn't going to ever try it and I stubbornly persisted in my refusal.

            For several years when my children were younger, I met once a week with a friend to pray for our kids.  One week, my friend prayed an unusual prayer - one that I had never heard before.  She prayed that her kids would be stubborn for God, and that they would follow after Him in a determined, persistent way.

            I've been thinking about what it means to be stubborn for God. There are plenty of  times that I am stubborn for myself, because I want my way, I want my point of view to be understood, and I want to be right.   To be stubborn for God would mean laying down my own agenda, my own desires, and being determined to do what He wants in any situation.  

           Jesus was stubborn for His Father in the way He lived, 

the way He loved others, the way He forgave, 
and the way He chose to do His Father’s will.  

He spoke out against injustice and meaningless religiosity. 
He loved the unlovable. 

He was determined to persistently go after those who were lost and hurting.  

He was stubborn all the way to the Cross, not stubborn for his human desires, 
but stubborn for God and His plan.  He was stubborn for us.  
And death could not overcome Him.  

The grave could not hold Him.  
Jesus Christ - stubborn to save, stubborn to love and forgive, 

stubborn to live again and give us life eternal.              

book reports, teen drivers, and ISIS

         Recently my nine-year-old daughter was working on her book report assignment while I was watching T.V.  She had to fill in a chart explaining different components of the story and her thoughts about it: main character, setting, plot, etc…  She ran up from the basement with her paper and pencil and whispered in my ear, “Mom, what does the “plot” mean?  I told her it’s like when we play Balderdash and you have to write down a summary of a movie title, telling the gist of the story in just a few sentences.  She runs back down to the basement, and then a few minutes later she’s running back up the stairs.  She whispers again in my ear, “Mom, what is my opinion of the book?”

        I laughed and told her that I couldn't tell her that – she needed to write down what SHE thought of the book!  Later, I thought about how when our kids are little, we do pretty much tell them what to think about things.  Sure, they have their own will (some stronger than others!), but they mimic our opinions on all sorts of matters such as what we think about certain people, personal styles and tastes in food and clothing, and political and spiritual viewpoints. I always got a kick out of the comments my kids would make about their “mock elections” at school during presidential election years.  It was obvious that many kids were “parroting” what they had heard their parents say about the candidates and issues.

        Contrast that with the teen years which are largely about our children branching out and separating from us.  They sometimes take on different viewpoints, shaped by their experiences with friends, in school, and in our culture.  Our oldest daughter just got her driver’s license, and our middle daughter is fourteen. We have had animated - even heated - conversations over social issues and current events, and I am seeing first hand that they are in a different level of discovery mode from when they were little. And they are not at all asking me to tell them what they think about things. 

       As a parent, this can be scary, but I am learning that this breaking away is not only OK, it is necessary.  Because we can only hold onto other people’s values, beliefs and viewpoints for so long before we must decide these things for ourselves.

 

       And at a certain point, our faith must become our own.  Many people identify themselves as a certain religion or denomination because that is what their family is, and that is how they were raised.  Religious tradition can define us like an ethnicity defines us. We’re Italian, we’re Greek. We’re Catholic, we’re Methodist. But authentic faith involves a choice - a personal relationship with God.  All of my daughters have questioned elements of our faith at times, and my prayer continues to be that their questions and doubts will cause their hearts to seek truth, and that their seeking hearts will find answers that lead each of them into a deeper, more authentic faith and relationship with God.

       I recently heard an interview with Kayla Mueller’s family, and while her story is heart-wrenching, it shines hope like a bright star in the darkest, blackest night.

       Kayla was an aid worker, and 25 years old when she was kidnapped by ISIS. She spent eighteen months in captivity until her family confirmed her death earlier this month.

       Kayla’s parents are Christians, and in an interview on the Today show they shared their story: they remembered their caring, compassionate daughter who always wanted to help others, they spoke about their faith in God, and how He has given them strength throughout this horrible ordeal.  Then they read a letter from Kayla, written during her captivity – they received it from fellow prisoners who had been released.  Here is an excerpt from www.today.com:

          “All that I have said in the previous letter stays true. Give your suffering to the      Lord, let our creator support you. Continue to pray, by God I feel your love and  your prayers.

          My heart longs to be with you all as... I have never felt before, but praise be to God you are in my dreams almost every evening and for just those brief moments in my sleeping conscious that we are together I am given a warmth. It's warmth enough for me to wake with a smile. Warmth enough to keep me company through the days, and warmth enough to keep my heart near to home and therefore to God, Mark 12:28-30. "The first of all the commandments is hear O' Israel, the Lord thy God is one Lord. And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy souls and with all thy mind and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment.

          All my everything,

         Kayla

        This is not just her parent’s faith – it is her own.  She writes about God’s comfort and strength, about God in her waking, God in her sleeping.  She writes scriptures the best she can remember them – God’s word stored in her heart.  She encourages her parents to give their suffering to God.  This is a faith that sustains, and it is a faith that one owns. 

        In my suburban world, I am occupied with book reports, work, play practices, and a new driver in the house.  And more than once I've woken in the middle of the night afraid, thinking about ISIS and what is happening in our world.  It’s hard to really know the extent of the evil that is taking place and I worry how fast and far it will reach.  I worry about our safety, my daughters’ safety and their children’s safety, and I hope.  I hope that God will stop the evil, and I hope and pray that whatever comes, my faith will be strong and I will be found faithful.

       And I hope and pray for my daughters - that their faith will grow strong and become their own.  That God’s Word, planted in their hearts from the time they were little, will grow deep roots, will guide them, protect them, keep them on course, and give them strength throughout their lives. These three remain, and no one can take them away: Faith, Hope, and Love.  And the greatest of these is Love.                      

shake and squeeze

This morning when my friend, Margie, asked me how I was on this Tuesday before Friday, when my two teenage daughters will get on a plane and fly to Mexico City to begin a month long trip with their grandparents, taking them to France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, back to France, then back to Mexico, before returning home in July, my answer was a word picture.

“I feel like an almost-empty bottle of shampoo that you turn upside down, 

shake violently, and then squeeze and shake, squeeze and shake, 

until every last drop spatters out.”

 

Getting the girls ready to travel AND helping them finish up their last couple weeks of school has been crazy, and has included trips to over a dozen stores, last minute searches for iPhone charger adapters and prepaid Visa cards that can be used outside the U.S.  (Where do they sell these???) It has involved lots of laundry, folding, packing, re-folding, and my dining room table has been taken over by bottles of sunscreen, toiletries and receipts.  My oldest is cramming for final exams and finishing last minute projects, like baking Irish Soda Bread for thirty people. We squeezed in a doctor’s visit and new prescriptions that caused allergic reactions and more trips to the pharmacy.  And because end-of-the-year friend stuff is HUGELY important to teens, we will be going to see the premiere of The Fault in our Stars on Thursday evening.

Shake and squeeze. 

Shake and squeeze. 

My mind and body are feeling the stretching, and my back is threatening to go out on me.  So today I am resting it and putting ice on it.  And as I slow the pace just a little I’m aware that something else is being stretched.  My heart is swelling with love for my daughters, with excitement over their adventure of a lifetime, but at times it’s also racing with the anxiety of letting them go, with the challenge to accept that they are growing up and, like thriving branches, they are growing out, away from the trunk. My heart is stretching as far as it can to trust.  To trust that God goes before them.  That He watches over their coming and going and is intimately in tune with their needs and longings.  That He is shaping all of us.

Even though it doesn’t make any sense and is a huge waste of time, my pattern for a long time has been to worry, pray, and then worry some more.  I find that praying relieves some of my anxiety, but then I usually go back to worrying because, well – I don’t know why.  Like I said, it doesn’t make sense.  What good does it do to trust God for 70 % and worry about the other 30%?  What would it be like to live a life of such surrender that 100% trust becomes a way of living?

I love the way The Message paraphrases the following passages:

Proverbs 3:5

The Message (MSG)

⁵ Trust God from the bottom of your heart;
    don’t try to figure out everything on your own.
Listen for God’s voice in everything you do, everywhere you go;
    he’s the one who will keep you on track.

and

Philippians 4:6

The Message (MSG)

^6-7 Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.

I’ve had it all wrong – those two little words are changing my life.  

Instead of worrying, pray. Not, in addition to, or along with.  

But rather, Instead of.

I am seeing my daughters blossom before my eyes.  I am seeing them overcome their own anxieties, and problem solve solutions.  I am watching their beautiful branches extend further than I thought they would.  I am hearing their honest prayers as they give thanks and ask God for His help and blessing on our summer.  But as is so often the case, as the parent, I may be the one that is growing up the most.