Recently I have regained inspiration to pursue writing to God in a prayer journal, and just journaling in general.
Back in the “Green Girl Gypsy Days” it was so natural and effortless to write to God. Maybe it was because I was lonely, or maybe it was because I thought it was something that I had to do to show my love for God, but most likely it was a combination of those two things, as well as other factors from that time of my life.
There came a point in my relationship with God where I stopped writing to Him. I attribute it to the chaos and busyness of being a wife, mother and at that time, a full-time employee outside of our home. Many prayers were said in my head as I would fall asleep, and often I would say them out loud on a commute to work, given that I was alone or had a baby as a passenger.
Then quickly I was allowed to be tested under multiple earthly trials. These trials piled up and created a kind of scar tissue on my heart. All I could mutter in prayer to God was “You are God and I am not. Have your way.” and then in times of anger towards God, I would usually add “But what does it matter?! You will have your way, no matter what.” When my mom was killed on July 3, 2021, my realization of Gods sovereignty and His love somehow bypassed a coldness and indifference to Him, but I had little to say to Him.
It was as if I had obtained this new level of brokenness and had no idea what to do with it, or what the purpose was. It was around that time that there was this newfound apathy for God and His ways, but it was evenly balanced with a brand-new depth in the realization of how my life is in His hands; He really does exist. He really is who He says He is. Yes, He actually is sovereign.
Maybe that is what brokenness as a Christian looks like? One hasn’t completely lost faith in their Father, but doesn’t know how to act or be around a God who has allowed painful circumstances to cause the brokenness being experienced, so we wait for Him, much like King David says:
“I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in His Word I hope.”
Psalms 130:5
This afternoon I went to my prayer journal to write to God, and found myself in a surreal place of wanting to know and love Him more, but I also felt more like a cynical old woman who has weathered the storms of life, no longer possessing the child-like faith and wonder that she did in her late teens and all through her 20’s. In its place is a heavy realization of the reality of God and firsthand experience of all that He is capable of allowing to happen in my life; a certain humble reverence of how small I am, and how big He is.
Where there once was romance infused prayers about a future husband, what I should do with my life and the general excitement that “anything can happen”, there is now a sober understanding of how anything truly can happen, but this time there is no romanticized excitement, only an actual understanding of what it means to be submitted to the will of God. I have truly come to a place of eating meat and not only being able to handle milk.
“For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. 14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.”
Hebrews 5:13- 14
Experiencing the true and correct context of these verses from Scripture in my own life is humbling, because I’ve done nothing in my own strength and ability to graduate to solid food. It is completely the work of the Holy Spirit. The “constant practice” that took place in my life has taken the form of responding to hard providence and fighting to understand Gods truth after a lifetime of having His Word taken out of context and used to manipulate, harm and confuse me. I believe that all Christians seek to graduate to the solid food diet, but few realize that it’s not something that you do, it’s something that is done in you and in Gods timing.
While my prayer journals of the past may contain evidence of being a milk drinking Child of God, the hunger and desire I had to write to Him was there. It wasn’t a desire I created as a result of legalistic man-made ideas but was simply there and on my own accord. The legalism would come in when I felt like I “should” write to God and if I didn’t, I didn’t truly trust Him or love Him, instead of recognizing the need to repent to Christ for not turning to Him with the matters of my heart, but rather to convenient idols that would take less time to satisfy.
Worshiping and praying to God should not be forced, but rather an overflow of the heart; an uncontrollable desire that needs to be acted on. The same is true of our study of God’s Word, the Holy Bible. We must always be on the lookout for the enemy to turn this and other beautiful truths of God into a bondage of guilt, legalism and power of self.
I praise and give thanks to God, for He truly pulled me out of darkness and confusion into His light, giving me a desire to know truth and discern good from evil, instead of leaving me to have every reason to not believe in Him, He has protected me by moving me not only a physical distance, but moving in my heart, lessening the gap between truth and deception, all while drawing me into His love that I’m not supposed to fully understand. To God be the glory, great things He hath done!
