I remember the day God became my friend.I was raised a good little Catholic girl with a basic understanding of who God was. Yet I always sensed there was more beyond going to church and following the rules. I wondered what was happening in the churches where children sang Jesus Loves Me and carried their Bibles to church - a book that just sat on shelf in my home.
And so it was one evening in high school when I was invited to a Young Life meeting when I got my first glimpse of God outside of church. I saw Him alive in the hearts of the young believers around me that worshipped in rowdy praise songs and met to open His Word to hear what He spoke into their lives. This was my first glimpse of what it meant to not just believe in God, but to walk daily with a Savior who cared about every step and breath I took. I found myself, at that very first meeting, overwhelmed with the beauty of young lives devoted to Him - not just focused on the struggle to navigate the world of popularity and fitting in and the importance of wearing Weejuns. (Remember those? - the shoes I only had a knock-off version of in my effort to make my place in the world.) All those insecurities and struggles of my teenage world fell away as I heard my peers pray - not from a book, but from their hearts. And I heard myself praying my first out-loud, communal prayer: "Lord, thank you for bringing me here tonight. I want you in my life. Let my life be a prayer."
Little did I know that I was starting on a journey of a lifetime that would begin that night - a journey where each high and low taught me one more thing about the mystery of God's sovereignty and His ways that are so much higher than our understanding.
Since that night I have never stopped learning more about Him through His Word and His Church. I've also learned much from my constant hunger for reading from Christian authors who have studied His Word and help me reveal its depths. But nowhere do I get a clearer lesson on the application beyond the information in the Word than from His people who have walked before me down the path of praying with their lives.
I collect those stories with a similar intensity to which I study His Word because in them I see His Word offered back in the response of their lives. I see the message of 2 Corinthians 4:16 (Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day) proclaimed in the life of my friend who is battling with grace and faith a rare form of Parkinson's in her mid-life years that were supposed to be her prime. Her battle that combines humor and anecdotes of the many instances God has taught her along this hard and long road are a book of strength that all her know her read in each visit. Despite her suffering, each encounter with her speaks loudly of something much stronger than her frail body.
I've also read the Word in the example of others who have battled betrayal and divorce with forgiveness and an amazing lack of bitterness, living out the understanding of what it means to follow our Lord's response of "Forgive them for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)
I've watched another friend demonstrate sacrificial love, quitting her career as a counselor at a high school to care for her aging parents at the expense of her own financial stability. I see her dependence on the Word that she has hidden in her heart and comes pouring out as an example of how faith really does provide sustenance in the hardest of times.
I've witnessed others bury their children, something no mother and father should ever have to do. Yet I've watched them rejoice in the midst of their sadness that though this world was not an easy place for their off-spring, they radiate a real confidence and peace assured that those they love are in a better place.
Then there is my doctor friend and his wife who had it all, so it seemed... until he had to give up his flourishing practice well before retirement age due to a mysterious and debilitating neurological disorder. What meaning his wife gave to the words, "What profit a man if he gain the whole world and loses his soul?" (Mark 8:36) when she paraphrased with a sermon in her own words spoken eloquently in the foyer of the beautiful house they built in their heydey - a house that has not become the prison that this awful disease might have transformed it into. In an amazing spirit of peace, she was able to tell us that although there are no good days physically - the pain never ceases - it has all been worth it for the gain there has been spiritually. She offered a word picture of being like a stone in a current, with the rough edges becoming smooth and beautiful because of what has come against them. I saw that metamorphasis in their personal transformation, being able to rise above the feelings of grief and bitterness that naturally come against our human nature in suffering to a place of surrender and gain in their significant loss.
I heard the message again this past weekend - this time with a life's prayer being delivered through a more formal delivery. Nancy Guthrie, Christian author and speaker told us the story of her journey at a women's retreat at a Presbyterian church in St. Louis. She spoke confidently of the first hand experience of how God can draw us closer through pain - in her case through the heartbreaking delivery of two babies born within a few years of each other each with a fatal condition. Instead of only her grief, she shared how she considered it a privilege to mother them each for only 6 months. She shared her study of how Jesus and Paul responded when God said no to their prayers, recognizing in His no that He gives a greater yes. Like them, she was able to share how Jesus is enough to get us through the pain of any answer of no to our desires here on earth and use it to a greater good. Her life's messages shouted the truth of 2 Cor. 12:9 which tells us, "My grace is sufficient for you, made perfect in weakness." And as I looked up during a praise song and saw this woman worshipping with pure, unadulterated joy, I saw God's greater yes to the strength of His presence shouting across the sanctuary to me despite the heartbreaking no this woman had suffered.
God has spoken to me loudly through His people. He often speaks through lives surrendered to pain with an unearthly peace. That's when all the confusion of this life slips away when I witness again the greatest Answer to all of life's questions. I have seen again and again the peace that passes understanding lived out. And because of this I believe without a doubt that in our gift of Jesus who walks beside us, we CAN grasp His hands and surrender our lives in a constant prayers.
Though I'm still learning what that means, I'm still praying...let my life be a prayer...
Let My Life Be a Prayer
Let my life be a prayer, Lord,
An offering to You,
A fragrant, pleasing offering
In all I say and do.
Let my joy be in You,
Seeing You in blessings that you bring.
Let my gratitude abound
In each and every tiny thing
That give us a glimpse of heaven -
A sunrise, a baby's smile -
That speak Your invitation...
"Come to Me and stay awhile.
Know that I am with you.
Even though the storm may come.
My light may be behind the cloud,
But every battle I've already won."
Let my response to life
In the good days or the bad
Reflect the grace you've given me
In peace - though glad or sad.
For You are sovereign, Lord.
Help me surrender all each day.
Let my life be a prayer
Offered in all I do or say.
