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)

when it's time to give up your dreams

                           I think I may be ready to give up on a dream.  This is a dream that I have intensely wanted for a long time. I have worked very hard to achieve it and have nearly exhausted all of my “next steps.”  So in an effort to reckon with reality, I’m giving up.  I think it may be time.

                When I told my husband this the other day, he said, “No – don’t give up!  We’ll pray about it!” (Because sometimes when you want something long enough, you stop really praying about it when you stop believing it’s going to happen.)  I understand why he responded the way he did.  He knows how much I want this.  He knows how hard I’ve worked.  And he probably has an idea of what comes next.  When you give up on a dream you enter into a process of loss.

 

                About a year ago one of the women in our community group from church (we call ourselves “The Tribe”) announced that she was giving up on her dream of becoming a school administrator.  After working as an interim assistant principal and loving it, Laurie had worked very hard to get into a district program to become an administrator.  She had even gone back to school and earned a doctorate degree in educational leadership.  She did everything she could to prepare herself for what she felt passionately about doing, and she felt confident about her qualifications.

                She didn’t make it into the program.  When she told us she was giving up on her dream, several of us protested, “No!  You’ve worked too hard on this!”  But she had already begun the unavoidable grieving process involved in the death of a dream.  She talked to us that night about surrendering and finding peace.

               We are supposed to tell our 

children to never give up on their dreams and that they can accomplish anything they set their minds to.  And yet I’m wondering if that will set them up well for real life?  My child may want to be a contestant on The Voice, but it may not happen.  My daughter may have her heart set on a particular college, but it may not pan out.  I have friends who have had to give up careers because of illness and homes because of financial hardship.  Maybe the more important thing we need to teach our children (and learn for ourselves) is how to hold up our dreams with open hands and live in a posture of surrender.  This dream of mine may be something I’ve wanted more than anything I’ve ever wanted, but if I am truly surrendering it to God, there is a flexibility instead of a rigidity.  There is an attitude, from the very beginning, that says, “I know what I want.  But more than that, I trust that God knows what is best for me, and that may look slightly or vastly different than my dream.”

                Our family enjoys watching American Ninja Warrior, and I love hearing the athletes’ stories just as much as I love watching them navigate the incredibly challenging obstacle courses.  Some of these competitors have given up jobs to pursue their dream of becoming the next American Ninja Warrior.  Some of them admit that they are so desperate to win, they don’t know what they’ll do if they don’t make it.  It’s painful to see these competitors fall off the salmon ladder or lose their grip off of the swinging spikes, because you get a sense of just how devastated they feel when they hit the water below.  And often they are asked the same questions afterward.  “Will you be back?  Will we see you here next year?”  In other words, are you ready to give up on your dream?

                I think the truly victorious ones are those who, in the face of dashed dreams, find a way to live out their passion doing what is possible and within reach in the here and now.  In their reckoning with reality, they find the courage to let go of a specific dream while holding on to a bigger vision.

 

                The producer of American Ninja Warrior calls Brent Steffensen and Kacy Catanzaro “the royal couple of ‘Ninja Warrior’”.  They both have broken records on the show and their mutual passion for ANW led them into a dating relationship.  Along with competing several times on ANW, they are currently working to open a training facility in San Antonio, TX.  As Kacy stated, “As long as “American Ninja Warrior” is not holding us back from other things we want to accomplish, we want to keep doing it.”  And despite this season’s disappointment (of not making it through the ANW course), Steffensen said he has his dream job.  He may come back and compete again, and if he does he will either fail again or break a record, but either way he is living a bigger dream.  He’s living a dream that taps into the core of who he is.

 

                Back to my friend Laurie.  She is as passionate as ever about teaching and educating children, and about leading other educators.  And she says this past year has been surprisingly peace-filled.  “I’ve learned a lot about myself, how much I was striving to make things happen, and how I pressured myself to make my dream come true.  I was carrying my dream like the way you carry a grudge.  It became heavy and I just kept lugging it around with me.  When your dream becomes a burden, it’s time to lay it down.”

                Laurie teaches fifth grade.  She is a department head and has exceptional leadership skills.  She chose not to reapply for the district program, and she has taught me a lot about what it looks like to surrender a dream that has become a burden.

                My dream is to publish a book.  Not just a book, but a specific story.  I have a polished proposal that I’ve spent hours writing and revising.  I have attended writers’ conferences and have had my work professionally critiqued.  I have followed up on nearly every lead, and the feedback has been consistent.  “Your writing is good.  You tell your story in a compelling way.  Your platform is not big enough.  We wish you great success and hope you find a home for your manuscript.”

                We hope you find a home for your manuscript.  My manuscript is homeless.  But I am not hopeless.  I may decide it’s time to let this dream go.  I may try a little bit longer.  I may decide to take a different route to get my book published.  But either way, I am living a bigger dream.  Either way, I can still tell my story.  Along with writing, I speak regularly at local women’s groups on topics I am passionate about, and I love it.  I am a communicator, and I am living a life consistent with who I am – with who God made me to be.

 

                As a parent, I will always be my kids’ biggest cheerleader, and I will encourage them to go boldly in the direction of their dreams.  But I also want to teach them – and model for them – how to hold their dreams loosely, with open hands and a surrendered heart.  I want to teach them how to know when it’s time to give up on a dream that has become a burden, and how to figure out what is underneath that dream that taps into the core of who they are. 

      

                From the very beginning of our journey, we can entrust our greatest dreams to the God who knows what is best – to the God who knows us best.   

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.

Last year I wrote about my New Year’s ritual of prayerfully looking over my calendar from the previous year, paying attention to where I saw God at work in my dreams, my family, my relationships, my spiritual growth, etc…http://beckyspen.blogspot.com/2012_01_01_archive.html

I still need to carve out time to reflect over 2012, but my new day planner couldn't wait!  As I started getting organized for the new year, filling in birthdays and appointments that I already have scheduled, there was no escaping the reality that for me and my family, this year is different.  My mom has cancer.  The kind that turns your whole world upside down and makes you wake up every morning wishing it were only a bad dream.

As I’m penciling in dates: a haircut on January 15^th, dentist appointments and a speaking engagement at MOPS in February, chemo treatments every three weeks for the next few months, a follow-up doctor’s appointment in April, and let’s not forget National Tea Day on April 14^th, the same nagging questions repeat themselves in a corner of my mind.  I try to shut the door to that corner, to silence the what-ifs, but it’s like closing a container that is too full – the contents spill out.  The questions I’m asking on each of these dates are honest and simple; What will life look like on January 15th? On February 7^th? On April 14^th? What will my mom’s status be?  Where will we be on this journey?

Life is always uncertain, but 2013 looks especially so.  Yet I find great comfort in knowing that God knows.  He could reach down from heaven with a sharpie and circle dates all over my calendar, and scribble in all of the events that are going to happen.  But I think He would also write the unchanging truths of His word in permanent ink all over the margins, because whether we know what’s coming or not, His promises and faithfulness will see us through:

Hebrews 13:5

God has said,

“Never will I leave you;
    never will I forsake you.

Psalm 68:19

Praise be to the Lord, to God our Savior,
    who daily bears our burdens.

Lamentations 3:22-23

Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed,
    for his compassions never fail.
²³ They are new every morning;
    great is your faithfulness.

^{Ephesians 3:20-21}

 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, ²¹ to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Psalm 46

God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in trouble.  Therefore we will not fear…

Be still and know that I am God.

As I walk with my mom and my sisters, with my husband and my children, I am holding on to these truths:  I know that God is good, and that He loves us. I know that He wants us to trust Him.  He doesn't want us to be afraid.  

I copied a message off a card over ten years ago when my husband was diagnosed with MS.  The future looked scary and uncertain.  These words comforted and helped me, and I have been reading them over again, a spiritual resolution for 2013:

Have no fear for what tomorrow may bring.  The same loving God who cares for you today will take care of you tomorrow and every day.  He will either shield you from suffering or give you unfailing strength to bear it.  So be at peace then, and put aside all anxious thoughts and imaginations.