As I said before, I have found a word for 2011. I am writing about it a bit late, because I don't know about you, but our family has been hit with every sick bug around this winter. We are usually really healthy, so this season has thrown me completely off.
(insert photo when blogger cooperates)
Without further ado, here is the first of four reasons I am trying to focus on the word little this year.
1. I must decrease. He must increase.
Some days I see how much bigger I think I am than I really am. Ann so sincerely shared my thoughts a few weeks ago much better than . While my job is incredibly important, I cannot allow my ways to get in the way of God's ways.
I recently shared with a friend that I find myself caught between two truths. First, God will not give me more than I can handle. Second, I cannot do anything without God. These truths require faith to blend them together seamlessly, and I have been doing a lousy job. Typically, I teeter between believing I can do so much more than is humanly possible and desperately begging God to help me fix everything.
Instead, I need to become little and allow Him to take over and be bigger than me. My controlling nature struggles with this in the small moments of everyday life, although I think I have a decent handle on submitting to God's authority on the big stuff.
Thursday, February 10, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Sometimes He Just Needs My Words
(blogger is not letting me post photos again, sorry)
I have a love affair with words. I like to speak them. I like to read them. I like to write them. I like to hear them. But, it occurred to me today when I was rocking the baby that my prayer life as of late has been without my own words.
Now, that is not always wrong. Different seasons in our lives require different methods of prayer. The Lord will lead us to pray the Rosary when He feels we need the meditation. He will lead us to pray in silence when our spiritual life needs such food. And, He will invite us to share the depths of our hearts with him, too.
My prayer life used to be full of my words. For many years, I spent most of my prayer time pouring out my heart to God, and it was good. At some point, however, I noticed that my words ceased being words of faith and praise but merely words of worry and whine. So, I stopped.
I turned to spiritual reading and meditating on Scripture and the Rosary, all very good things. Of course, with a new baby, I lost my rhythm of these prayers. My mother's hear merely exhaled aspirations throughout my days...and sleepless nights, also good. About a month ago, however, I began longing for more.
And, in keeping with my realization that it took me about a month to get started in this new year of 2011, today, I hear the Lord ask for my words again. My own words formed in this mother's heart and spoken in the voice of my soul while I rock a fussy baby to sleep once again. After all, I had become frustrated unable to hold a Bible or book without little hands grabbing fistfuls of delicate pages.
He needs to hear my words. In fact, He longs for them like I long to be close to Him. Sometimes nothing else will work to bring us closer together but the words that I conceive in my heart. Lord, help me to speak words of faith and praise in prayer today.
What season of prayer are you called to these days?
I have a love affair with words. I like to speak them. I like to read them. I like to write them. I like to hear them. But, it occurred to me today when I was rocking the baby that my prayer life as of late has been without my own words.
Now, that is not always wrong. Different seasons in our lives require different methods of prayer. The Lord will lead us to pray the Rosary when He feels we need the meditation. He will lead us to pray in silence when our spiritual life needs such food. And, He will invite us to share the depths of our hearts with him, too.
My prayer life used to be full of my words. For many years, I spent most of my prayer time pouring out my heart to God, and it was good. At some point, however, I noticed that my words ceased being words of faith and praise but merely words of worry and whine. So, I stopped.
I turned to spiritual reading and meditating on Scripture and the Rosary, all very good things. Of course, with a new baby, I lost my rhythm of these prayers. My mother's hear merely exhaled aspirations throughout my days...and sleepless nights, also good. About a month ago, however, I began longing for more.
And, in keeping with my realization that it took me about a month to get started in this new year of 2011, today, I hear the Lord ask for my words again. My own words formed in this mother's heart and spoken in the voice of my soul while I rock a fussy baby to sleep once again. After all, I had become frustrated unable to hold a Bible or book without little hands grabbing fistfuls of delicate pages.
He needs to hear my words. In fact, He longs for them like I long to be close to Him. Sometimes nothing else will work to bring us closer together but the words that I conceive in my heart. Lord, help me to speak words of faith and praise in prayer today.
What season of prayer are you called to these days?
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