Tag: Faith

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Prayers of Psalmody for our Children

 

Blessed is everyone who fears the Lord,
who walks in His ways!
Your children will be like olive shoots around your table.
May you see your children’s children!
Psalm 128:1, 3, 6 (ESV)

Sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, the ones specifically today who are raising the next generation for the Kingdom of God; how we need to recover and embrace the duty, the art, the service, the joy of praying for our children. No matter how old your children are, it is time to pray for them. And if there are children in your life who you do not mother, it is still a glorious privilege to bring them before our Father as well—so please join us in praying, even if you pray for the children of others. May we break forth in prayer to our Father in the vein of mothers like Hannah, like Mary, like Lois and Eunice. May He hear us and grant us our requests in accordance with His holy will. Please kneel with me and bow your hearts in prayer, as we pray together for our children.

 

Holy Father in Heaven, incline Your ear toward us, answer us in our need. Please hear us for the sake our children, who belong to You according to Your covenant promises. Please, Father, preserve our lives—we seek godliness in the light of Your glory, for You are our God and we trust You. We trust You for salvation and provision, O God. Be gracious to us, and hear our cries. Lift us up and give us gladness because of Your goodness, Your forgiveness, your steadfast love. Because of these things, Triune God, we plea for grace and ask you to hear our prayers. (Psalm 86:1-6) We pray for the sake of the children You have entrusted to us. May Your will be done.

Father, my children come from a line of Christians that have been faithful to Your covenant, like Timothy’s line through Eunice and Lois. You have put faith in the hearts of my children, and I ask You to fan that flame which is a gift of God. Please enable my children to embrace the spirit of power and love and self-control that You have given them. Give my children strength to share in the sufferings for the Gospel, for You have saved my children and called them to a holy calling, for Your own purpose and grace. Lord, give my children confidence in You, and allow them never to be ashamed of their testimony for Your Kingdom. (1 Timothy 1:5-9) You are in heaven, and You alone are the Holy One.

God, please give our children the grace and wisdom they need to keep the commandments of their father, give them stout faith and diligence so that they do not forsake the teaching of their mother. Please bind Your truth on the hearts of our children and tie them around their necks, keeping the commandments of righteousness ever before their eyes. Lord, cause these things to lead our children when they walk, to watch over our children when they lie down, and to speak Truth to our children when they wake. (Deuteronomy 6:20-22) Father, give our children graceful garlands for their heads and pendants for their necks, that are the instruction and teaching of their parents in godly fear and humble hearts. Use us as their parents to instruct and teach in godliness. Please give our children faithful dedication to the things they have been taught from Your Word so that they will flee from evil, run from temptation, and not consent to the enticement of sinners. (Proverbs 1:8-10) Please protect our children from the evils that surround them, for indeed we do not only battle against the physical things of a sinful world, but against the spiritual forces of evil and the hidden principalities of the devil. Please, O Lord our God, grant that our children would be equipped with Your armor, so that they will stand firm when facing evil. Oh Father, fasten upon our children the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the gospel of peace. Give our children the shield of faith, and use it in them to extinguish the flaming darts of the evil one. Put on their heads the helmet of salvation, put in their hands the sword of the Spirit. Give our children praying hearts, making them alert with perseverance, giving them mouths to boldly proclaim Your Gospel. (Ephesians 6:10-19) In this way, O Lord, further Your Kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. Lead our children not into temptation, and deliver them from evil.

God of all wisdom, please grant wisdom to the hearts of our children. Direct them in Your way. Teach them discernment, giving them eyes to see folly for its emptiness. Give our children ears and hearts that are eager to heed the voice of their father and honor their mother. Please give our children a love of truth, so that they will seek wisdom, instruction, and understanding in all things. O God, give us the hearts of our children, and give them eyes to observe our walks with You, even as You mercifully grant us the grace we need to walk faithfully with You. Let us rejoice and be glad over children who are faithful and righteous. (Proverbs 23:19-26) Give us faith for what we do not yet see, and give us hope for the future, knowing that You hold it all. Enable us as parents not to provoke our children to anger, but give us humble dependence on You as we bring them up in Your paideia. Cause our children to honor and obey their parents, in You, and be true to Your promise to them to bless them. (Ephesians 6:1-4) Give them their daily bread.

Lord, You are our God and God of our children, and Your name is majestic! You are glorified above all, and Your glory is in the heavens. Establish strength in our children because of Your grace, and use the faith and testimony of our children to still Your enemies. (Psalm 8:1-2) Thank You, Lord, for the heritage You have given us in these children—please continue to make us fruitful as we nurture these olive shoots for Your Kingdom. Thank You for blessing our quiver with gifts of life! Please make us skillful archers to tend these arrows, help us to hone and sharpen and straighten these arrows by Your grace and favor. May we always remember that it is not their number that is important but their efficacy. Oh Lord, make our children potent. (Psalm 127:3-5) Please give us as parents wisdom and humility to train our children in the way they should go, so they will embrace Your covenant and never depart from You, giving us grace to discipline our children according to Your Word so that folly is driven from them and their hearts are continually softened by Your Word. (Proverbs 22:6, 15)

When our children sin, Lord God, bring them to repentance quickly. Create in them clean hearts and restore righteousness to them because of Jesus their Savior. (Psalm 51:3, 10) O Lord, be merciful to our children, for You are gracious. Show them what it is to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Father, forgive our children for their sins. Your love toward those who fear You is as high as heaven is above the earth! Show the depth of Your love and mercy toward our children by removing their transgressions from them as far as the east is from the west, as they fear You and repent. Show Your compassion to our children, and remember their frame of dust. Lord, our children’s days are busy as grass, but You and Your love endure for all eternity. Because of this, Lord of our family, we boldly ask You to remain faithful to our children and our grandchildren and our generations after them who keep Your covenant and do Your commandments, because You are indeed faithful and show us Your steadfast love. (Psalm 103:8-18) Forgive all of us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

According to Your great grace, our God and Father, be pleased to bless our children. Cause them to walk in Your ways so that they will eat the fruit of their labors, that they will be blessed—bring them spouses of unique valor and give them faithful, industrious, beautiful, creative, singing, dancing children. Give our children a zest for You and fear of You—in Your mercy, bless them from Your holy mountain, show them prosperity, allow them to see their children’s children, enable them to spread peace abroad. (Psalm 128) Delight our children with Your law, and be ever on their hearts and minds. Establish our children, for the sake of Your everlasting love, like trees planted by streams of water. Make our children fruitful in their seasons, and make them green with strength and integrity. O Lord God, for the sake of Your Kingdom and the testimony of Your people, in all that our children do, give them purity and make them prosper. (Psalm 1:2-3)

Our hearts exult in You, O Lord God, in You alone are our horns exalted. We laugh at our enemies and rejoice in Your salvation. There is none holy like You, O Lord, no one beside You—no rock like You, our most faithful God. (1 Samuel 1:1-2) Hear our prayers and show Your faithfulness so that we can glorify You anew and again. Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, the Glory—always and forever. Amen.

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Prayers of Psalmody in Motherhood

 

Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,
the fruit of the womb a reward.
Like arrows in the hand of a warrior
are the children of one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
who fills his quiver with them!
Psalm 127:3-5 (ESV)

My dear sisters in the Lord Jesus Christ, and most particularly today, the ones who are raising little ones for the Kingdom of God; how we need to cover not only our children in prayer but also ourselves as their mothers! I find it so much easier to pray for others than to pray for myself—but, oh, how naïve and simplistic that is! How prideful, to even pretend to think that I can get by without praying for myself. Because I need so much prayer, and especially in this wonderfully huge but terrifyingly small work of motherhood. Oh, Lord have mercy upon us!
Sisters who are mothers, please kneel with me at the feet of our Father while we bring Him our motherhood… and sisters who know mothers, please kneel alongside us and pray for us as well. We need Jesus and His grace, and we want to walk together in this journey of seeking the Kingdom to come on earth and specifically in its manifestations in the work of motherhood. Pray with me now, inserting your own personal tweaks, requests, and names as we go:

 

Lord of all creation, Father of all mercies, King of our hearts and homes,
Please hear us as we bring our petitions before You, and as we seek Your face today in our calling of motherhood—in all of its joys, challenges, enormity, smallness, victories, defeats, the miraculous and the mundane. You who once were knit inside Your mother, O Lord Jesus, (Luke 1:31, 35) You know what it is to dwell in a womb, to nurse on a breast, to cry in the night, to need food and clothing and snuggles and teaching—to need a mother. Hear us, Jesus, and grant that our requests would be heard and holy in the ears of Your Father, our Father.

We praise You and we bless Your name, for we know that You sit high in the heavens and that all things are under Your feet, including the daily and repetitive things. Oh Lord, You are the One that designed the daily rising and setting of the sun. You ordained repetition and routine, so please help us to embrace it and glory in it, resting in Your sovereignty even when the daily threatens to weigh us down. You look down upon those in the dust and those who are needy—even us, Father—and You lift us up, build us up, equip us, strengthen us, give us joy and promise and victory. You are our hope! We trust You, we praise You, we hope in You for every act of motherhood. Thank You for being our God, thank You for being God to our children not because we are faithful but because You are faithful, right from the womb. (Psalm 71:5-6) Thank You for the gift of children—thank You for filling wombs, filling arms, and for the various ways You do these things. It is hard to be thankful for things like infertility, miscarriage, and long roads of complicated pregnancy or adoption. But Father, in whatever ways You have accomplished our motherhood, thank You. Thank You for knitting children in wombs, for creating DNA strands and dividing cells. Thank You for secret work, for wonderful work, for intricate work. Thank You for planning each day of my life—and each day of my children’s lives. Thank You for the knowledge that I do not have power over their lives. (Psalm 139:13-16) Thank You for taking a woman and making her a mother. Thank You for making me a mother. Help me to praise You rightly for this gift, this responsibility, this joy, this mercy every single day. (Psalm 113)

Please give wisdom and kindness to my mouth, so that I will not speak harshly to my children but wisely and kindly. It is so easy to be snappy or snarky—please give words of mercy and grace in their place. (Proverbs 31:26) Please grant me a compassionate nature to remember that, like me, my children are but dust. Make me a mother who remembers the frame of my children, so that I build them up rather than tear them down. (Psalm 103:13-14) Please make me a woman that could justly be praised and blessed by those whom I serve as well as lead. (Proverbs 31:28)

Lord God, please teach me to love my children as I ought. (Titus 2:4) Be with my hands, my feet, my mouth, my ears, my eyes, my womb, my breasts—to use every part of me to love my children as You want me to, genuinely and truly. (1 John 3:18) Show me how to walk in love, so that I would lay down my life for my children not just sometimes but all the time. (Ephesians 5:1-2) Give me diligence to discipline when and how You require and desire. Allow me not to be swayed on my conviction against sin, but give me the eyes to see sin for what it is, where it is, and how it needs to be addressed. Give me the strength to love my children with discipline so that they would increase in wisdom. Please give me rest and delight rather than shame. (Proverbs 29:15, 17) Please teach me true forgiveness, so that I would forgive as I have been forgiven. (Psalm 32:1-2)

Please give me the industrious nature that I need to accomplish the work You have put into my hands. Gird me up, so that I can press on in faith, love, and holiness in self-control. (1 Timothy 2:15) When I labor to love my children, to feed them and clothe them, to educate their minds and nourish their souls, to make them happy and cover them with peace—allow me to do this in accordance with Your will, O God. (1 John 5:2-4) Cause me to obey Your commandments, to grow in my own faith so that I will always speak of Your glory and teach Your laws in ways that are true and winsome and inescapable. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

Please enable me to seek the good of my children, in their humanity and in their eternal souls. Convict me to pray for them regularly and specifically, night and day. (2 Timothy 1:3) Please remind me daily that their spiritual growth is more important than anything else, and give me the grace to preach the Gospel to my children through my actions as well as my words. Cause me to proclaim Your deeds and Your faithfulness, which You have taught me and proven to me repeatedly and continually. God who has never left nor forsaken me, allow me to rightly show forth these things to the next generation of those who love You! Give me the words and the wisdom to proclaim Your power and might. (Psalm 71:17-18) Please give us joyful praise together, to praise Your holy name! May each member of our family praise You, knowing that You are high above all things and You alone are to be exalted! Please give me the strength to teach this praise by genuine, diligent example. (Psalm 148:12-13) Be pleased, O Lord, to grant Your grace to continue on to another generation, and allow my faith and the faith of my mother and mother-in-law also to bolster the faith of my children. (2 Timothy 1:5)

Please, in Your merciful kindness, remind me that these beloved children belong to You, and help me to praise You for Your kind gift of life & appreciate the blessing of being entrusted with these little saints. Allow me to rejoice and be glad! (Proverbs 23:25) Please give me the bold strength to be tenderhearted, to imitate You in how I gather, carry, and gently lead my young ones. (Isaiah 40:11) Thank You for hearing our prayers, for remembering our frame, for loving our children, for drawing us to You by Your covenant love and faithfulness. We thank You, Lord, for Your steadfast love and Your faithfulness to our children. (Psalm 107:8, 15, 21, 31) We praise You for Jesus, our Prophet, Priest, and King, in whose glorious and saving name we pray these things at Your throne. Amen.

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Prayer of Psalmody ~ in expectancy

 

…I love you, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer,
    my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge,
    my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold.
I call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised…
Psalm 18:1-3 (ESV)

Oh sisters, are you holding new life in your womb?! Is it the rainbow after your storm? Is it the balm in the midst of your brokenness? Is it the hope of heartbeats in the space of stillness? What a time of hope mingled with anxiety! What a chance, not just daily or hourly but moment-by-moment, to lay burdens and fears and worries and doubts and terrors at the feet of Jesus—not to mention bringing Him all of our hopes and desires! I have carried miraculous life in my womb a dozen times—only the first time held naïve, unabashed hope for me. The next eleven have been terrifying, and it is only the grace of God that has carried me through each one, no matter how many weeks I held each baby in my womb. Three of my rainbow babies have made it full term, whole and healthy! What miracles! What joys! What months of prayers! There are so many times during pregnancy—especially particularly anxiety-filled times like sitting in doctors’ waiting rooms or staring at the phone just wondering when it will ring so I can find out blood test results—where I feel speechless, even in my prayers. The prayers found in Scripture, where I can speak or sing God’s words back to Him, asking for His mercies, repeating His glories, claiming truths that I know yet need to know deeper—those are the prayers that I cling to, often and particularly. So today, as I fall on my knees and bow my head before our heavenly Father, would you come with me? Would you join me in praying Psalms and other Scriptures for the lives of babies who are snuggling into warm wombs of mothers whose hearts have been broken, who are clinging to the hopes of expecting a baby… while fighting anxiety and doubt… while seeking God’s will and asking for His best… but honestly knowing that we do not know the outcome or what “God’s best” may be this time.
Please pray with me, personalizing this prayer as the Lord leads—and if you are one of my sisters in Christ who has suffered the particular grief of bereavement, now facing the particularly bittersweet joy of subsequent pregnancy, these prayers are for you and for your baby.

O God our Father who lives and reigns in heaven, You are holy and glorious, faithful and merciful. Please listen as we Your servants come before You to plead for Your mercy. Please shine the brightness of Yourself in our dark and desolate places! Incline Your ear to hear us! Open Your eyes toward us! Because of Your great mercy, not due to any righteousness in ourselves, we come to Your feet and seek Your attention, Your actions, Your interventions. We are Yours, God, called by the name of Your Son Jesus Christ, and we ask You not to delay but to act swiftly for the sake of Your own glory! (Daniel 9:17-19)

Our hearts rejoice in You, and You exalt us, O Lord. We rejoice in Your salvation so that we can even scoff at our doubts and anxieties. (1 Samuel 2:1) Having buried children in our past, we come to You humbled that You would give us renewed hope and the balm of another child nestling into wombs that have felt so broken and so empty. We magnify You and rejoice in You greatly, because You have indeed looked with mercy upon our place of humble grief—indeed, we are blessed, and want to proclaim to all generations how holy and faithful You are! Your mercy is great, from generation to generation who fear You: You are holy! (Luke 1:46-50) Thank You for looking upon our downtrodden faces and hearing our desperate cries, for creating life in our wombs. Thank You for fearfully and wonderfully knitting together children within us—for showing us with these tangible realities how truly wonderful and marvelous Your works are. Oh Father, how terrifying it is to feel so close to this baby yet so out of control and far away! Thank You for reassuring us that You have numbered the days of our children, have written them down, that You can see inside the dark secret chambers of our bodies that are unknown even to us. Thank You for intricately weaving the tapestry of each child—thank You for building bones, sewing sinews, commanding heartbeats, tenderly stitching flesh, carefully creating each little detail of our children’s frames, breathing souls into them. (Psalm 139:13-16) Please continue this great craft that You are fashioning—please grant continued life, growth, and faith. We cry to You, O Lord: please have mercy upon us. Please keep death and sorrow far from us. Our souls are cast down with fear and anxiety, full of turmoil. Give us hope in You: cause us to praise You, for You are our Salvation, our God! (Psalm 42:11) Be our Helper, send Your sweet mercies—we will praise You, we will tell of Your faithfulness. With the new life You knit inside us, You have turned mourning into dancing—You take our garments of sorrow and give us the clothing of gladness! God of all creation, may we glorify You in this wondrous work of new life, may we sing Your praises and never be silent, may we give thanks to You forever. (Psalm 30:8-12)

As we continue going forward each day, giving our anxieties to You and declaring our hopes to You, cause us to tell everyone of Your blessings toward us as You deliver us from the deepest anguish of grief—keep us from restraining our lips. Enable us to proclaim Your faithfulness, Your salvation, Your love, Your deliverance! Give us the hope and confidence in You that we need to tell everyone about Your great works, and give us the humility to ask others to join us in prayer. Grant that we all would rejoice and be glad in You, love Your salvation, and proclaim Your greatness. Thank You for taking thought of us in our humble place—thank You for being our Help and Deliverer! Do not delay in granting us Your peace, health, hope, and joy. (Psalm 40:9-10, 16-17) God in heaven, we are bold to ask: grant life! Grant living babies to us so that we can praise You yet again, and in new ways.

We rejoice in You, our Father, and take joy in You—You have saved our souls, and that is just one more reason for praising You amidst our current uncertainties and joys—You have power over life and death and resurrection. You are our strength, and we ask You to make our feet like the feet of deer, allow us to dance on the high mountains! (Habakkuk 3:18-19) Christ, You dwell in our hearts through faith: root us, ground us, give us comprehension—so that even when we are fearful for our future, worried for the life of our child, we would know the immensity of Your love and be filled with God’s fullness. You, indeed, are the One that is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we could ask or think! To You alone, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, be all glories for all generations—including the glory of the generation in our wombs. (Ephesians 3:17-21) Your steadfast love is better than life, and we praise You with our mouths, even through this time of prayer: we will continue to bless You as long as we live, lifting our hands in Your name. (Psalm 63:3-4) For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.

© Melissa Joy, 2014

Written originally for Mommies With Hope, Melissa Joy seeks to grow in grace and wisdom alongside her husband Steven, while pursuing joyful domesticity by nurturing her home and family. The blessing of motherhood and the blessing of growth in Christ have intersected in a beautiful and challenging way for her, as she embraces being Mommy to twelve beloved children: 3 in her arms, 9 in the heavenly choir. The joy she finds in her family, homemaking, music, writing, ministering to those in grief, and seeking to be a pillar of loving strength in her home can be seen unveiled at Joyful Domesticity.

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Prayer of Psalmody ~ in grief

 

Hear my prayer, O Lord; give ear to my pleas for mercy!
In Your faithfulness answer me in Your righteousness!
Psalm 143:1 (ESV)

The book of Psalms is often referred to as the songbook of Scripture, but it is also a prayer book. So would you join me in praying some psalms today as we grieve and yearn and seek God’s face of mercy together? Let’s use the psalms today as our skeleton for prayer, and ask God to hear us as we gather together from various places at various times, but with one mind and one purpose—seeking His favor while glorifying Him even as we fall at His feet in tears of grief and longing. Please pray with me, interjecting your own specific requests as we go along.

Our Father in the glories of heaven, we ask that Your holy name would be honored and glorified as we fall at Your feet. (Matthew 6:9)

Oh Father, we are crying out to You with our voice—to God with the voices You gave us. Please give Your ear to us! We are in days of trouble, and we are seeking You, Lord. The night feels endless, and our souls ache with discomfort. We feel so troubled, even when we remember You and Your sovereignty—it is overwhelming and we need to pour out our anguish before You. (Psalm 77:1-3) Have you cast us off forever? Will Your favor ever return to us? Where did Your mercy go? We know You are faithful, yet did Your promises fail? Where is Your grace? Have You forgotten me? Are You angry at me? Have You put away Your mercy? Oh God, this is my anguish—my fears, my doubts, my pain. But indeed, You have been faithful: I remember the things You have done, for me and for others, now and in the past. Please help us to meditate on Your works, to praise You as we talk of the things You have done. (Psalm 77:10-13) You are our shield, our glory, the One who lifts our head. We are crying to You with our voice, and we ask You to hear us from Your holy hill. Arise, O Lord! Save us, oh our God! Death is our enemy, and we know that You have victory over death and the grave—salvation belongs to You, and we believe in the resurrection, Lord. Please let us see that Your blessing is on Your people—even us, our wombs, our children. (Psalm 3:3-4, 7-8)

You are our Shepherd. Because of You, we do not want for anything—You give us all that we need, food and drink, protection and even delight. You restore our souls, even through the aching grief. Continue to lead us in paths of righteousness for the sake of Your name. But Father, do You see us? We are walking through the valley of the shadow of death! It is so dark in this shadowy valley. Please remind us to fear no evil—even here—because You are with us. Please comfort us with Your rod and Your staff: directing, leading, carrying, tenderly showing us the way through this valley. (Psalm 23:1-4) Deliver us, cover us, be our refuge; gird us with Your truth as our armor for defense and protection. The Lord is our refuge: be our dwelling place so evil and harm will be kept far from us. Keep us in all our ways—whether grieving or rejoicing—reminding us that Your angels keep charge over us. Bear us up, keep us safe: deliver us because we love You, pick us up out of the dust back to the high places because we know Your name. We call to You! Answer us! We are in trouble, Lord God—please be with us, deliver us, and honor us for the sake of Your glory. (Psalm 91:3-4, 9-15)

Oh Lord, our dwelling place, teach us to number our days so that we would be wise in heart. Grant us Your wisdom. How long until we feel Your mercy return to us, O Lord? We, Your servants, seek Your compassion! We want to rejoice, we long to be glad all our days! Please come and satisfy our empty places with Your mercy. We have spent years in affliction, suffering the awful effects of evil and sin—burdened by death. Please restore gladness to us, in the wake of this affliction. Show us Your work! Give us children so that we can show them Your glory! Oh God, pour out Your beauty upon us, by establishing the work of our hands. Great King and Creator of all life, yes, establish the work of our hands! (Psalm 90:12-17)

Father, I implore Your grace on behalf of so many sisters who are suffering: please, grant them the desires of their hearts, as they glorify You, and fulfil their plans, as they align with Your will. (Psalm 20:4) As we kneel here at Your feet, please hear our cries for the sake of our Savior Jesus Christ, Your Son who was Himself the Man of Sorrows and acquainted with grief, because it is in His holy name that we pray these things. Greatness, power, glory, victory, and majesty are Yours and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is Yours; thank You for hearing our prayers, Head of all creation. (1 Chronicles 29:11) For Yours is the Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory forever and ever. Amen.

 

© Melissa Joy, 2014

Written originally for Mommies With Hope, Melissa Joy seeks to grow in grace and wisdom alongside her husband Steven, while pursuing joyful domesticity by nurturing her home and family. The blessing of motherhood and the blessing of growth in Christ have intersected in a beautiful and challenging way for her, as she embraces being Mommy to twelve beloved children: 3 in her arms, 9 in the heavenly choir. The joy she finds in her family, homemaking, music, writing, ministering to those in grief, and seeking to be a pillar of loving strength in her home can be seen unveiled at Joyful Domesticity.

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To Pray

 

…Lord, teach us to pray…
Luke 11:1 (ESV)

I went jogging in the peaceful coolness of the early morning. The sun was shining through the trees, the breeze was hitting my face, my ears were filled with sounds of morning songbirds, crowing roosters, bawling cows, and crunching gravel beneath my feet. I don’t like exercising, but I do like being fit—and I like having solitary time to focus my thoughts and tune my heart to God, His creation, His Word. Sometimes I sing psalms while I exercise, sometimes I pray, sometimes I simply weep and trust that the Spirit intercedes for me even when I am speechless.

I love to pray, to commune with my Father—and I’ve been doing it for my entire life. Conversing with Him is as natural as conversing with my earthly father, for I have known both of them that long. But there are times when I don’t really know what to say to my dad, or don’t need to say anything to be heard. Sometimes we just catch each other’s eyes and know the meaning behind it, deep in the other’s heart. Sometimes it is sob-filled, teary phone calls where I’m certain my words are somewhat incoherent, but I need to say them, and he is the one I want to hear them. Sometimes we have long conversations, giving and taking in the banter equally. And sometimes I am so at a loss for words, for whatever reason, that I just don’t even want to begin the conversation.

And I find that my conversations with God parallel these things.

Just a month ago, my morning prayers were filled with almost senseless begging, pleading to God with repetitive requests and endless questions, desperately wondering what He was doing, why I had to suffer this way, practically asking to wrestle blessings from His hands. If you had been listening in, the refrain would have sounded a lot like, “please God! Oh please God! Please, God, just… oh please!” My heart filled in the rest and my tears were the chorus. I could almost sense the robins, the deer, and the squirrels hushing—I imagined it was because the Lord knew the sacredness of this conversation with Him where I was so helpless, and even His woodland creatures hushed their breath and stilled their actions as I jogged by so I could cry and He could listen. This morning, as my feet carried me forward, my heart cried to my Father again. Today was one of the more eloquent days, with fully formed sentences and coherent requests, littered with lists of thanks for His graces, and I honestly sought Him on behalf of others rather than on behalf of myself.

The Lord is with me in all of these things. He hears me in each of these situations, and every one in between. He hears me when I plead with Him on the ultrasound table, He sees me rip out my hair while I wail in grief in an exam room, He bottles my tears in the bathroom over negative pregnancy tests, He embraces my body and soul as I grieve over death and as I expectantly long for reunions in heaven. He hears me on  behalf of my suffering friends and my grieving family members.

As I continue to grow in my relationship with my Heavenly Father, I want to deepen my understanding of prayer, enrich my conversations with Him, and learn how to glorify Him with my praise, my requests, my stutters, my tears, my shouts of joy, my cries of anguish. I often sing the Lord’s Prayer, and then take each of the six petitions therein, expounding upon one at a time in spoken prayer, filling out the shape of what Jesus exemplified for us. I often also use the book of psalms to help shape my prayers. I want to embrace asking for God’s will to be done with my whole heart and entire mind. In Matthew 26, Jesus Himself cried out to God as He anticipated His own crucifixion, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (ESV). It is perfectly honorable to follow the example of Christ, and ask the Lord to take this bitter cup of suffering from me—and, trust me, I do that regularly! I’m nigh well sick of the recurrent pregnancy loss journey, and He hears about it from my lips often enough. But even when I ask Him to take away miscarriage from me, when I beg Him to grant us living children, when I come to Him asking for wisdom in pursuing medical avenues and uncovering health complication—even in the midst of those requests—I want to prefer His will over mine. Sometimes I just plain ask Him, “give me the desire to prefer Your will, because honestly, I don’t understand how this plan is better than what I asked of You!” I ask Him to grow me up into His will, into loving His will, into desiring His will, into embracing His will.

So as I continue seeking God’s face in the mornings—as I quiet my soul before Him while the body He gave me exercises in the midst of the nature He placed around me, presenting not only my words but also my body before Him—may He teach me how to speak with Him, glorify Him, make requests of Him, and live fully in communion with Him—not because I want to get things from Him, but because I want Him—and I desire to learn from Him how to pray so that I can get more of Him.

 

© Melissa Joy, 2014

Written originally for Mommies With Hope, Melissa Joy seeks to grow in grace and wisdom alongside her husband Steven, while pursuing joyful domesticity by nurturing her home and family. The blessing of motherhood and the blessing of growth in Christ have intersected in a beautiful and challenging way for her, as she embraces being Mommy to twelve beloved children: 3 in her arms, 9 in the heavenly choir. The joy she finds in her family, homemaking, music, writing, ministering to those in grief, and seeking to be a pillar of loving strength in her home can be seen unveiled at Joyful Domesticity.

 

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Mingling the longing & the gratitude

I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude,
of groundedness,
of enough,
even while I’m longing for something more.

The longing and the gratitude, both.

I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know,
that He sees what I can’t,
that He’s weaving a future
I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.

~Shauna Niequist, Bread & Wine, p59~

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Light!!

Jesus came as a light, The Light, to lighten the Gentiles! (Luke 2:32 and Acts 26:23) He came for His people, which come from every tongue, tribe, and nation according to His great sovereignty & grace. Even for me. Even for my children. What a glorious mercy! What dazzling light!

Isaiah 60:1-4
“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee.And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.”

shutterstock_99183872

“As with gladness men of old
Did the guiding star behold;
As with joy they hailed its light,
Leading onward, beaming bright;
So, most gracious Lord may we
Ever more your splendor seek.”

William C. Dix
1837-1898

Today is Epiphany, and we remember with joy the wisdom and obedience of the magi as they followed the star, found the child King, and worshiped Him with gifts beyond our understanding. So today my children and I have lit extra candles, and we talk about sharing the light of Jesus with all people, and we end the Christmas season with gladness and joy and dazzle ~ because Christ has come! He came for His people ~ He came for all peoples ~ and He came for us. Amen! Praise to Thee, Lord Christ! Amen!

And for a unique poetic take on the subject, read along with me what T. S. Eliot wrote from the perspective of the magi…

Journey Of The Magi by T. S. Eliot
‘A cold coming we had of it,
Just the worst time of the year
For a journey, and such a journey:
The ways deep and the weather sharp,
The very dead of winter.’
And the camels galled, sore-footed, refractory,
Lying down in the melting snow.
There were times we regretted
The summer palaces on slopes, the terraces,
And the silken girls bringing sherbet.

Then the camel men cursing and grumbling
And running away, and wanting their liquor and women,
And the night-fires going out, and the lack of shelters,
And the cities hostile and the towns unfriendly
And the villages dirty and charging highprices:
A hard time we had of it.
At the end we preferred to travel all night,
Sleeping in snatches,
With the voices singing in our ears, saying
That this was all folly.

Then at dawn we came down to a temperate valley,
Wet, below the snow line, smelling of vegetation;
With a running stream and a water-mill beating the darkness,
And three trees on the low sky,
And an old white horse galloped away in the meadow.
Then we came to a tavern with vine-leaves over the lintel,
Six hands at an open door dicing for pieces of silver,
And feet kicking the empty wine-skins.
But there was no information, and so we continued
And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon
Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory.

All this was a long time ago, I remember,
And I would do it again, but set down
This: were we led all that way for
Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly,
We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death,
But had thought they were different; this Birth was
Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death.
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

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Hope for 2015

What gives me hope is the belief that God will be faithful,
because he has been faithful before,
to me and the people around me.

I need the reminders.

I need to be told that he was faithful then, and then, and then.
Just because I have forgotten how to see doesn’t mean it isn’t there.
His goodness is there.
His promises have been kept.
All I need to do is see.

~Shauna Niequist, Cold Tangerines, p128~

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Real story grip

Mary knew she was a pregnant virgin,
Mary knew what Simeon told them here [in Luke 2:25-35],
she knew what the angel had said, and more.

So she knew that the cross was not the end of the story—
but it was true grief in the story nonetheless.

Knowing we are in a story does not prevent real story grip from happening.
A sword went straight through Mary’s soul—
and she knew that it was coming years in advance.

~Douglas Wilson, God Rest Ye Merry, p29~