God Doesn't Bring His Cell Phone to Prayer

This morning I had a little extra time to get ready, so I felt relatively relaxed going through my morning routine. As I poured myself a glorious cup of french press coffee I thought to myself, "I even have extra time to add to my morning prayer."

Coffee in hand, I grabbed my bible and prayer journal and sat down to pray.

And then all of a sudden I was on Instagram.

Oh yeah, that's right. My phone was there too. But, hey! I use it to look up the daily readings! Don't judge! (hmmm....maybe it's a little late for that, considering the Instagram thing...)

As soon as I caught myself, I felt the familiar prick of guilt at wasting my prayer time. Too often I daydream or doze off...or catch up on the last 30 minutes of social media activity...instead of focusing on my time with the Lord.

It's ironic, because I actually had plenty that I wanted to talk with the Lord about. Lately I've been recognizing my need to surrender and listen, and those are two things that can't happen when I'm busy reading a Buzzfeed article.

Remorsefully I set down my phone and picked up my bible. In that moment it was as if I heard the Lord say, "You know...I don't bring My cell phone to prayer."

Well, of course You don't, Lord. You don't have a cell phone. (But if you did, I'm sure You'd have a Samsung). 

Joking aside, in that instant I realized/remembered a key piece of this whole prayer relationship thing...

(Dang it! In the meantime, I got an email notification on my phone. Can't you see I'm trying to take the high road here???)

Anyway...back to my thought.

When I come to God in prayer, He (in His omnipotent divinity) focuses on me as if I am the only person in the world. When I approach Him, He is entirely focused on our conversation. 

That's pretty incredible, because I feel like we could just say that "He's God, so He can be thinking of all things at once." And yes, He can. But He chooses to have a personal relationship with each one of us...if only we choose the same thing. God is God, and He is able to be personally present to each of us. It's a relationship. A conversation.

So God doesn't bring His cell phone to prayer. He isn't "distracted" from our conversation...He can be fully with me.

And yes, He's God, so He does have the upper hand in this situation. But don't I (at the VERY least) owe it to Him to leave my tangible distractions behind, even if I can't fully rid myself of every random thought?

So today I'm going to print off a list of the daily readings. Tomorrow I'm going to leave my cell phone in the other room while I pray. 

Because if God doesn't bring His cell phone to prayer...than neither should I.

Not Yet.

I'm a romantic.

I've had dreams of my perfect life since the time I was little. Seven-year-old Catherine would walk around the yard, picking flowers, singing to myself, and dreaming of all the exciting things I would do when I grew up. As I got older, I would while away my time dreaming of my perfect man...the one who would waltz into my life, sweep me off my feet, and then live with me happily ever after. And now that I'm a logical adult...I dream of white picket fences and granite counter tops, wood floors and curtains that coordinate with my perfect furniture. 

I'm a planner.

Post-it notes, "to-do" lists, pocket calendars, folders, files, lists, checklists...these are my friends. Being organized makes me feel "IN CONTROL" of my plans and activities. I enjoy planning...to a fault. I've been known on several...er...many occasions to draw up a full blown plan with spreadsheets and itemized checklists before the objective is even a realistic possibility. For instance: I've planned entire trips to Europe that I will probably never take (thank you Pinterest).

So yeah. I mean...I guess I've thought of my future once or twice.

I've never been happier with where my life is. I'm married to the love of my life, I have fantastic friends, a great job, and I live in a city that I've fallen in love with. I'm accomplishing more, I know myself better than ever before, and I'm enjoying the day-to-day tasks and events that fill my calendar. I've found a new peace with being where I am.

And yet.

I sometimes find myself pining for those romantic plans that I have drawn up in my head.

Sometimes what I see in front of me doesn't match up with those white picket fences and life plans I have for Ryan and I. And even though we might be moving gradually towards them...sometimes that movement seems too slow to perceive. 

And in the midst of my thought and plans and dreams, the Lord whispers one thing to this heart:

"Not yet."

Sometimes I'm like a whiny kid in the backseat of the car on a long roadtrip. I keep complaining and asking God, "Why is this taking so long? Are we there yet?" But we aren't. Not yet.

He knows what is best for us. He holds our days in His hands. And I am confident that the reason all my dreams and schemes haven't been realized yet is because it's not time...not yet. 

Waiting is HARD. But the very best things in my life have been the ones I had to wait for....and in the end, they have been SO worth the wait.

I grew up, and I have done some pretty exciting things (not least of which being my time as a missionary). 

My knight in shining Altima swept me off my feet, and every day we're living the joy and hard work of that "happily-ever-after" adventure. 

And the big question is this: If I never get these things...if these plans and dreams never come true...would the life that I have be enough? 

When I'm faced with that question...wow. Yeah. I wouldn't trade this for anything. My life up until now definitely hasn't gone according to scheme...and yet I'm happier than I ever could have imagined I would be.

So, God...yeah. You're right. Just because my dreams aren't right now doesn't mean that I can't trust You. Because I can. You know well the plans you have for us. And if Your plans are different than mine...*deep breath*...BRING IT. Because I know You have something incredible planned for us...I just don't know what it is. Not yet.

Let Me Be Still

My God, let me be still.

My God, let me be quiet.

Let me be quiet, even though I fear what I may hear in that silence.

My God, let me be small.

Let me be small, and know Your greatness. 

In a world that is so big, and with a heart that is so small...let me know that You are greater still.

My God, let me be still.

Let me be still with You.

This heart is restless...let me rest in You.

"Oh my soul, be at rest in God alone, from whom comes my hope
God alone is my rock and my foundation, my secure height; I shall not fall"

Let me be at rest in You, my God. Though I am scared of heights, let me know that I shall not fall.

Let me trust in You alone.

You alone are God.

My God, let me be still.

Let me be still with You.

The Burden that is Light

Life is heavy.

We'd like to think that it isn't. Or at least, we usually act like it isn't. But it is. Life is heavy.

I've been reflecting on this lately, and I think best in analogies.

It's as though each of us has a pack in which we carry this weight. The weight is different for each person, but each of us has to carry it.

No one else can see the pack we carry...how big it is, how full. No one can judge the weight. Only we know how light or heavy that pack is.

We each have one. In it we carry our hopes. Our dreams. Our plans. Our secret longings. And with that comes the weight of the unknown...the unseen...the someday...the hoped for...our castles in the sky. And though we are fond of these dreams...they come with a weight.

Our pack holds our hurts. Our wounds. Our scars. The secret fears we would rather no one knew of. Some of these have the weight of shame...others the weight of regret. Some just have the weight of the past. And the past can be a heavy thing.

We carry our loves in that pack. Our family. Our friends. Those dearest to us. These people make life beautiful, and they impact us in a particular way. In fact, in some small way we begin to carry the burdens of those we love...it's part of how we love them. So we not only carry our loves...but with us we carry a part of their burdens.

It's easy to see how quickly our pack becomes full and heavy. 

Life is HEAVY.

It carries a weight...because it is important. Life matters. Your hurts, your joys, your dreams, your pain...matter. The burdens of those around you matter. 

Sometimes it is REALLY hard to carry all those burdens...especially the burdens of those we love. They hurt. Lately I've seen a lot of people I love dealing with difficult situations, heartache and loss. It hurts. And yet, we have a hope. 

"Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am meek and humble of heart; and you will find rest for yourselves. For my yoke is easy, and my burden light." (Matt. 11:28-30)

Sometimes I'd rather carry this pack on my own. I'm little, but I'm strong. I've got this. And I know my lot isn't all that heavy, and yet to me it seems quite heavy at times. And there is something freeing about having another to walk with.

Our God knows well those who labor and are burdened. 

So today, Father...take my hopes. Take my dreams. Take my plans. My hurts. My fears. Carry those I love. Carry their needs. Because life is HEAVY. 

But YOUR burden is light. 

Why I Want Lent to be Harder

LENT.

I love Lent. No, I'm not being facetious. I really do love Lent.

I LOVE black and white. Concrete parameters. Step by step instructions. Definitive directions. So I LOVE the particulars of Lent. Starting Ash Wednesday every year we enter into a very specific season in the life of the Church. With the "everyone's doing it" positive peer pressure of our fellow Catholics, it's "easy" to pick some sort of penance or self denial for these 40 days. I like the challenge. 

However.

I am TERRIBLE at Lent.

Why? Well, one, because I can be really internally whiny when I give things up. This year I'm giving up the snooze button and getting up right away when my alarm goes off. And even though I've done it (for the whole two days since Lent started *cue the golf clap*) you can bet that there is an internal monologue about how sad/cold/tired/miserable I am in those ten seconds it takes me to get out of bed. So...there's that. 

But also...I'm bad at Lent because I'm good at going through the motions of Lent. I'm good at perfecting my penance (notwithstanding my whining), sticking to it, and emerging on Easter Sunday...exactly the same as I began. And that kind of makes me feel like I'm missing the point. Shouldn't something about Lent change me? I mean, if I'm going to give up those precious minutes of sleep, shouldn't that have an impact on my life?

I want Lent to hurt a little more than usual. I want to feel the sting of self-denial. And not just for the sake of looking or feeling hard-core in my sacrifice. But because I want to be different at Easter.

I want to be a better wife. A better daughter. A better sister. A better friend. I want my heart to be ready for Easter. I want the reality of Christ's Passion, Crucifixion, and Resurrection to have a real impact on me. 

SOOOO much easier said than done. I know, because I pretty much say the same thing every year. And really...it sounds kind of cliché in a lofty ambition kind of way. 

But specifically this year, my prayer is that Lent will change me. That (albeit slowly) jumping out of bed to start my day will discipline this heart. That I'll actually take advantage of that extra time that I'm not sleeping and spend it in prayer. That I'll be more honest, real, vulnerable and silent with the Lord...and that I'll allow Him to change me for the better.

I don't expect to be a living saint by April 5th. But I hope and pray, by the grace of God, I'll be a few steps closer to Christ and slightly more the woman that He has created me to be. 

Hopefully writing this will make me feel guilty if I don't follow through. Good old Lenten peer pressure ;)   

Psalm of Job

I was very excited to see the daily readings from the book of Job a couple of weeks ago. To some, the book of Job may seem rather dismal and depressing...but to me it is a beautiful reminder.

It's been almost four years since I wrote Psalm of Job...a song that echoes the words of Job in the Old Testament. 

Thank you Lord when You give

 Praise You still when You take

Let all be for Your glory

May my life be a sacrifice of praise

Your will not mine, Your will not mine

You behold the ends of the earth and see all that is under the heavens

For the wisdom of God far surpasses that of man

You see my ways and You number my steps

I know that You can do all things

and no purpose of Yours can be hindered

I have dealt with great things that I cannot understand

Things too wonderful for me, which I cannot know

When my soul does not have strength, blessed be the name of the Lord

When I cannot see the way, blessed be the name of the Lord

When You give and when You take, blessed be the name of the Lord

I've been "writing" songs since I was eight. You can ask my parents for an embarrassing litany of my childhood hits, including my debut with "My Dreams are Full of Violets". How am I not wildly famous already? :P

But joking aside, writing music has always been a very important expression of prayer for me. When my heart is happy, it sings. When my heart is struggling, I sing. And when I am faced by realities outside of my control...I sing. 

How Psalm of Job came to be written is a bit of a long story...but I'll sum it up quickly. I wrote the song during my first year of service with NET. Losing one teammate and gaining another caused my heart to cling to the words of Job: "The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; Blessed be the name of the Lord." Throughout the remainder of my missionary year, the song grew in my heart until it was complete.

But I had no idea how much the Lord would use that song of my heart.

I've had the opportunity to share Psalm of Job with a number of people, and missionaries after me started to use it in their praise and worship. It's not an exaggeration at this point to say that hundreds of people have heard Psalm of Job. This summer I even had the opportunity to lead over a hundred people in worship during Adoration...and I was able to pray this song of my heart with them. 

That's pretty cool. It's actually REALLY cool. 

But I'm shocked at how much significance this song has to me, even now. In the quiet of my heart. In my daily experiences and interactions.

Because my life is BEAUTIFUL. My life is GOOD. I am blessed beyond measure. And yet, this little heart looks at a hurting world...and I need to hear those words again. I look at my own little crosses, and the much more painful crosses of others...and my heart cries these words. 

And I'm realizing the importance of praying these words at all times. In the joy, and in the pain. Because this is my mission statement: for my life to be a sacrifice of praise. Life is full of different seasons... and some will be harder than others. I want to be near to the Lord in every moment...not just when I am crushed beneath the weight of loss or pain or anxiety or turmoil. 

A few people caught this at my wedding, but one of the reasons I love Oh God Beyond All Praising SOOOO much is because it uses these very words: "We sing before Your beauty and glory in Your ways, and make a joyful duty our sacrifice of praise." 

Life is beautiful. Life is good. But that doesn't make my need to cling to Christ any less. 

When my soul does not have strength...

When I cannot see the way...

When You give and when You take...

blessed be the name of the Lord

Discernment and the Beautiful Right Now

Prayer has been very interesting lately.

And by "very interesting", I mean....not so particularly interesting.

I think for a long time I bought into the stereotype for Christians in their mid-twenties that prayer should be filled with discernment of God's will. Lord, where do you want me to go? What do you want me to do? How do you want me to make this decision? Now, it should be noted that learning how to discern God's will in my life was a necessary, painful, beautiful, and very necessary growing process for me the past several years. You don't do two years of missionary work, up and move your life to a new city, get married, and up and move your life to ANOTHER new city on a whim. Or at least, you don't if you are ME.

But somewhere along the way of discernment, I think we can lose ourselves in the process to the point that discernment becomes our goal. At least, that's what I'm pretty sure I've done in the past. And now I'm (somewhat) settled where I am. I've found my vocation, I'm working a job that I love, and life is kind of settling into a beautifully normal routine...and it's weird to not be discerning something.

I came to that thought/realization this morning after my prayer time. Because the last couple of days I have started my prayer with a very simple, "Thank You, Lord". Simple, because nothing too extraordinary has happened. And yet, I find myself so incredibly grateful for the little moments of each day. Life with Ryan. Life in Ohio. New friends. New job. New routine. Discovering new passions. Building new dreams. Nothing extraordinary...and yet I find beauty in the ordinary and the simple.

I know that I am where I am supposed to be. And that is a gift. 

But that also catches me off guard, because I'm realizing I have this tendency...a sort of reflex that I've developed to look for "what's next". And I've started to fight it...because I don't want to know what's next.

There are decisions to be made. There are dreams to be built. There are goals to chase. 

But right now is good. Right now is beautiful.

As I write this, I remember the crazy-emotional girl who was riding in the car with her handsome, charming boyfriend...knowing (through some feminine intuition) that he was planning to propose to her in the near future. And as she sat there, watching the scenery flash by as they drove, she was excited and nervous...and maybe a smidge sad. Not because she didn't want to marry him (because she did!). But because those seven months they had dated were good. They were beautiful. And she didn't want to lose it.

That girl was me. That night as we drove I said, "Life is so good right now. But I know that life will change...and I know that it will be good. But I think I'll miss right now."

Yes, sometimes I talk like a character in a sappy novel. But I think that what I said that night holds true for me even now. And I'd like to think that Mrs. Me can learn something from Miss Me.

So for right now...for today...let me live in the moment. Let me rejoice in those little every day occurrences. Let me bask in the present. I'll do today's work, make today's decisions, enjoy today's moments...and I pray that I'll have the humility and the wisdom to let that be enough.

Because change is a part of life. Sooner or later, I'll have to discern something. And then I will :)

But...life is so good right now. And I know that life will change...and I know that it will be good. But I don't want to miss right now.