Where the Catholic Sun Doth Shine

A little extra sap for your Friday evening

As I put Emma down for bed tonight I thought about how possibly the best thing that happened to my spiritual life was becoming a parent. I took a picture of my kids sitting at the dining table tonight, right before we were about to eat dinner, and posted it to Twitter and Instagram with an inexcusably cheesy caption. I can see the dining table from the chair in Emma's room where I sit and rock with her, and I asked myself what it was, exactly, that made me feel so full tonight. 

Because... let's be honest. I am tired. I spent most of my not-taking-care-of-kids time today digging up my yard, cleaning up the kitchen, and sorting through Emma's clothes. I made dinner when I really didn't feel like making dinner. I ran errands and started buying gifts for the nine zillion May birthdays in my family. I feel like I haven't talked to Phillip in weeks. I'm not not doing well, I'm just tired and in need of a bath and what in the world was particularly joyous about asking my kids to eat their broccoli over and over and over. What would I tell a friend who doesn't have children? What is so GOOD about this? 

"Well," I said to my imaginary friend, "I think it's just that they exist. They're just here. And I love them."

I've confessed to you that I know, like, a negative amount of Bible verses, but every so often one runs through my brain (if I may paraphrase): if YOU know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give to YOU. Or something like that. You get the gist. 

Not long ago I wrote a post about how I worry that I sometimes spoil Molly. It's just that I enjoy delighting her SO MUCH. Girlfriend loves her morning coffee shop muffins with Mommy, she's super excited to go shopping, she's just the best little partner and several times a week I tell her she's not allowed to go to kindergarten next year because what will I doooooo? ("Mommy, EMMA will get bigger and then you can talk to HER.")

God loves me at least that much. God loves me a trillion times more, being God and all. I can't fathom it, and yet, because I'm a parent, I have the tiniest sweet little HINT. If even YOU, you lame flawed pathetic little human, know how to love your children, how much more does the Almighty Father love YOU?

I know. We can say it together. DUUUUUUUUDE.

I think all this sunshine puts me in a very sappy mood. Sorry. Good thing it's such a rare event HAR HAR.  

For I am His and He is mine

I continue to be struck by the fact that the fight I'm fighting has already been won. I keep catching myself trying to be good, trying to be better, trying not to be the fallen flawed human I am, and then I remember: I've already been redeemed. No guilt in life, no fear in death, this is the power of Christ in me. 

I'm remembering that last year at our couples retreat someone asked me what I thought I needed... I'm not sure what the context was, though I was struggling so much with anxiety and meds that weren't working at the time. Struggling to be okay with all of that. And I said something like, "To understand what it meant for Jesus to die on the cross." Which is INCREDIBLY dumb, when you think about it. "What do you need, Maggie?" "Oh, to believe in the solid rock on which my faith is built." "Uhhhh..."

But honestly? Since that weekend? The year I've had so far? God is giving me understanding. That I was included in that promise, in his great saving of life. Me! Why would a person who is already forgiven continue to beat herself up? 

So I'm not all the way there yet, but I have such a greater, deeper, REALER understanding. And it's brought such joy to my life this year. People, I have a permanent SCAR from WORSHIP. One of my favorite songs came on Pandora while I made dinner and I lifted my hands in the kitchen like a good fake Protestant and there is joy! 

And as He stands in victory
Sin's curse has lost its grip on me

I found a babysitter for my Sunday evening prayer nights, FINALLY. The first one will be in June. We'll see how that goes. I'm thinking it will be once a month, but it'd be so great if people wanted to do it twice a month. I'm excited. I think. Sometimes I'm all WHO DO I THINK I AM? And other times I am all WHO CARES?!

I am trying to live more of my faith in front of my kids. I've decided, for right now, for me, this means just living the faith I already live out, but more so in front of the kids. Like, we don't do a lot of family churchy things, I'm not crafty, I'm not deliberately reading them Bible stories. But I listen to a lot of music and we sing and dance and sometimes I play the piano or the guitar and I play God songs now, not just the Toddler Pandora Station. If I'm compelled to say, "But this is why we have Jesus!" or "But Jesus is with you, so you don't have to be afraid!" I say it. I'm trying to ask them more about where they think God is in their lives. On their level. If I keep this up they might actually grow up thinking Catholics talk about their faith. !!!!

Little stuff like that. 

I'm bad at church though. Right now. I cannot bring myself to want to go. I almost feel ANGRY. I should figure that out. That's got to be more than just being annoyed by my monthly committee meeting. 

Anyway. There you go. State of the Churchy Bog. Onwards and upwards.

I just have to tell you

Last night I found out that the craziest prayer time we had at Urbana, where God specifically instructed how to pray for someone none of us knew - last night I found out that we were totally right on. The thing that we suspected happened in the past? Totally happened. The thing we suspected came out of that experience? Real and traumatizing. The things we prayed for? Happening. Healing is happening.

AIIIEEEEEE I LOVE IT

Take me by the hand and stand by my side

I have this HUGE THING I want to write here and I DON'T KNOW WHAT IT IS! It is driving me CRAZEEEEEEE!!!

It's sort of like... well, like I want to pull you out of the computer and into my house and sing my new favorite Jesus song with you and then say something really awkward like, "OH, isn't it AMAZING? Isn't He SO GOOD? [Insert a sigh of otherworldly contentment]." And you'd offer me a Kleenex, because I'm crying Happy Tears and you are a nice person, but you would gently remove your hand from mine and possibly scoot a little farther down the couch and check your watch to see how long before it's appropriate to jump back into the computer again. I understand. I can get weird. 

I'm not entirely sure how to write THAT.

It comes from a place of not knowing what the heck I was going to do about something. Every strategy developed into another unacceptable scenario. And out of frustration and desperation I went to God and threw it all down and said, "I DON'T WANT TO DO THIS." And He was all, "You don't have to. That's My job."

I prayed and prayed and what I heard wasn't a solution or a course of action, it was a call to worship the one who provides a way when there is. no. way. To adore the one who takes my burden from me, who gives me rest, who gently pries my fingers from the things that aren't mine to figure out. I am free. 

I thought this thing I'm feeling now was a necessary growing pain, something I had to fix, something I had to work hard to decipher, something frightening and out of control, and when I caved and asked for help God said, "But you know who I am."

I do. He is the way when there is no way. He is the truth, the light, Redeemer, Defender. He is the One who has overcome the world. 

The painful thing is still there. Yet I feel light. Unbothered. Unconcerned. I am struck by the truth of who God is. I don't know it in my head as much as I feel it in my whole being. 

So all day long I pretend I'm freaking Natalie Grant singing the acoustic version of Your Great Name, my heart on fire. I sing Barry Louis Polisar's All I Want Is You and pretend God is singing it to me. (The Vespers version is awesome, btw.) If I'm feeling edgy I bust out the Christian hip hop (OH YES I DO) and dorkdance around to Password. I was never the sort of person to dance around my house and sing love songs to the Great Almighty but dudes, I am becoming that person. I think that's what I want to write, like how much I want to pull you through the computer and we could sing and dance TOGETHER. I just think this would be SO GREAT.

Where's my trophy?

I have composed a Prayer Place Invitation Email that my friends tell me doesn't suck. Now I have to figure out how/where to get babysitters. I'm thinking I'll need two. I don't know any teenagers. I'm kind of thinking getting some friends to ask around at their churches? Also someone mentioned community service hours? I wonder if I could work that out somehow. 

Anyway. 

Today started out super dark with a nice downpour and crazy wind. Now it's bright and sunny - still with crazy wind though. My house is surrounded by ginormous trees and all day long these huge shuddering thumps on the deck have been freaking me out - but just pinecones getting hurled around. Fun times. 

But I'm thankful for this sunshine. I've been feeling dark-ish. Does it sound weird to say that I've been thinking a lot about that last year of grad school, when we lived in the rental house and I got pregnant and we moved way before we were ready - is it weird to say that I feel like I'm processing all of that right now? I'm not super fond of the word 'processing', but it's exactly the right word here. I feel like I went through all that - we went through all that - and everything was fine and we found a new house and had our baby and powered through work travel until Phillip got the new job and now everything is much better (exhales). I just find myself going back to that time, maybe because it was this time of year when everything got super crazy. I see the ways that I sucked it up, the things I ignored, the things that felt too big to deal with, the stuff I just had to do so I did it, and now I feel... I don't know. I don't know what I want. A prize? A pat on the back? 

I actually think I do. Gah. 

I bought Phillip a very fancy laptop for Christmas. My mom bought my dad a Macintosh a million years ago and I remember him opening it and how excited he was. I've never given Phillip a present that he was super excited about - I haven't ever spent that much money! - but this year I just felt like WHATEVER. He deserves it. He's worked really hard. He's come so far. I wanted to give him something, you know, meaningful. Not just a Christmas gift, but something that said "I want to give you everything". I couldn't do much better than a very fancy laptop. And he loved it. I win. At least once in our marriage I win presents. 

It's sort of like THAT. Like I WANT SOMETHING that recognizes the last few years, or rewards me or SOMETHING. But do I want something from Phillip? From God? I really don't know. Phillip and I have talked so much about Marriage Stuff in the last year and I feel like I should be over it by now. I am not secretly seething about something. I love him, I'm so proud of him. We know some folks going through hard relationship stuff right now and last night he brought me yellow roses (which look absolutely perfect in my dining room btw) just because he was feeling thankful that things with us are All Good. And they are.

But I still feel like I have to PROCESS. Sometimes I wonder if it's the writery part of me, that needs to form some sort of narrative. As in, "here is the story of the grad school years", that I can refer back to, hang my feelings on. I don't feel like I HAVE that story. It still feels messy, like I'm not quite sure what happened or what I was feeling or what Phillip was thinking. A friend of mine mentioned that she thought I've only had time to think about that NOW. Like I was too busy just powering through until just recently. So maybe that's it. 

I don't know what I want, though. I don't feel like there's some THING that I want to show for all of this. Don't get me wrong, I love presents and should my husband buy me something very sparkly or did something I've been wanting to do with the house or whisked me to Europe for a month (IF ONLY) I certainly wouldn't complain. At all. FEEL FREE, PHILLIP! But I don't know if that would solve what I'm feeling. I wonder, as I'm typing, if I want God to reveal to me the ways I was refined by those years. Am I a different person? A better person? Who am I now? 

I don't know. And I have to start thinking about dinner, my absolute least favorite thing to think about. So. That's that. 

Inspired! Again! But will I actually follow through? IS A MYSTERY!

Someone recently told me about a family who decided to host a Bible study at their home every Sunday during Lent. The interesting thing about it is that they don't have a lot of money and make only one pot of soup for whoever attends, yet there is always more than enough soup. A modern day loaves and fishes story. 

Of course, what *I* got out of this was: people come over every Sunday?! I should do that! (I LOVE PEOPLE COMING OVER!) 

And the topic of the retreat we went to two weekends ago was money. Specifically, how to justly spend and donate and use your money and resources. Phillip came out of it with twelve million ideas for how to do twelve million different things. It was really fun to talk about! Last night we sat down to discuss where we're tithing and what different things we'd like to support. And here is where I tell you my new idea. What if we used some of that money to hire babysitters once or twice a month and invite anyone who's interested to come to our house for prayer? I would even make soup!

I'm not thinking of a prayer GROUP so much as a prayer PLACE. This is hard for me to articulate, but I have to practice if I ever want to communicate this idea to people who might actually ATTEND. Ha. 

So, say: Sunday night, from 5 to 7pm, come over to our place, leave your kids downstairs with snacks and a babysitter, and come upstairs to pray and receive prayer. You could come over needing prayer about a job or a relationship - there would be people to pray for you! You could come over wanting to pray for someone - there is always something to pray for! You could come over just wanting to pray in community and spend some time with God - that's what we'll do. 

It would depend a lot on who shows up. Maybe we send someone with a specific problem over to a corner of the house with someone experienced in prayer ministry. Maybe we're all new to praying in groups, or we're a mix of different faiths, and we'll start with Lectio Divina, something structured. I think each time I would need to have a structure, a plan, something to lead, while knowing that that night's group might require something completely different. Honestly, this is the part that sounds most exciting for ME, personally - the opportunity to "practice" discerning what that time of prayer should be, how God wants us to use that time. 

We would pray for an hour or so and spend the second hour eating, hanging out. Of course we could continue prayer into that second hour if anyone wanted or needed to. Perhaps just part of the group would pray longer and the rest of us would be obnoxiously loud. Who knows?!

There would be no commitment, no requirements, no experience level, no nothing. It would simply be a PLACE. If you wanted to, if it sounded interesting, if you were curious, if you needed it, then come. My hope is that there wouldn't be pressure, that everyone would feel welcome, that it's a safe and gentle and life-giving hour for those who attend. 

Maybe no one would show up! Worst case scenario is Phillip and I enjoy having someone else watch the children while we catch up on The Big Bang Theory. 

Practically speaking, I see organizing this as sending one big email notification (hopefully with a much more articulate explanation) then setting up a Facebook group to notify people when those nights occur. 

WHAT DO YOU THINK? In my HEAD it sounds amazing and awesome. In practice it could be... messy. Awkward. Hrrmm. 

Every fear has no place at the sound of your great Name

During one of my summer or Christmas breaks I took my mother's classical guitar back to the dorms and taught myself a few chords. At that time there was no limit to free printing at the campus computing centers, provided you were using the grayish recycled paper, and I spent HOURS on a massive guitar tabs site that was taken down years ago. I printed pretty much every Indigo Girls song I knew, plus a lot of Dar and Ani and plenty of other random songs. I used to have a giant green plastic binder filled with those pages, but I threw it out a few years ago when we moved. I regret it now, since in the last few months I've pulled Phillip's [much nicer, much better, acoustic] guitar out of the closet and started up again. I'd forgotten a lot of chords, but they've come back (except Bm7, I never remember that one) and my fingertips are starting to toughen up and I can still tune the guitar by humming Metallica's "Nothing Else Matters". Me = talented. 

Actually, not really. I live with an Actual Talented Musician. I'm more the sort of person who unfeelingly bangs out sheet music on the piano, can pick out the first part of "More Than Words" on the guitar but gives up because it gets too hard, and sings... not well. (I spent a few years singing next to this guy I kinda liked named Phillip Cheung, in churches and during retreats, waiting for him to compliment on me on my singing. I'm still waiting.) Anyway, I don't think I have any illusions about my musical ability, or should we say Lack Thereof. I know! I am Somewhat Less Than Average! But I play anyway and I sing pretty loud and I ENJOY IT, DAMMIT. God says make a joyful noise! And mine IS noise!

The last few afternoons I've hauled out that guitar and strummed (pick-less, because I can't figure out how to USE a pick) (THIS IS HOW BAD I AM) a lot of the worship songs we sang at the retreat this weekend. For some reason I've been struck this last year by how good and important worship is as part of prayer. Another post entirely. But I've been inspired and I found this awesome guitar tabs app and I've been treating my kids (ha! "treating"!) to a little guitar in the afternoon. Picture a little girl in a fairy princess dress twirling around while her mother awkwardly strums "Your Great Name". 

And I was thinking today - so much of what I've learned about prayer this year, even the new depths of my relationship with GOD this year - I've acquired because I started to treat it like my guitar playing. Something I know I don't do perfectly, something I'll never be expert at, but something I greatly enjoy doing, even if I suck. When I play guitar and sing I'm all, "Well, here I am, God! Surely I have one of the worst voices on the planet! I cannot, for the life of me, get an F chord to sound decent! But you said make NOISE and that I can do! Joyfully! LA LA LA!"

I've been noticing this specifically in group prayer, but tonight I just feel like saying: dudes. Let it go!

I feel like I've spent a lot of time trying to get it RIGHT. How to be Catholic the right way, how to do prayer the right way, how to communicate about faith the right way, even the right way to grow spiritually. Sometimes this means following all the rules, sometimes this means fulfilling someone else's picture of what you should do or be, sometimes it means reading the right books, sometimes it means joining the right groups and going to the right events. In almost all cases it means holding myself back so I don't make a mistake. Mistakes are bad. This is eternity! This is people's relationships with God! This is big stuff! I can't mess up, I can't mess up, I can't mess up. 

Except I TOTALLY CAN. And when I just throw it all out there, when I shout "EFF THIS!" and just do it anyway? God is delighted. 

Why did I think God couldn't deal with my missteps? Why did I think he couldn't transform my mistakes? Why did I think that if I made a mistake I'd have to sit in the corner? GOD'S corner, where I'd miss out on all sorts of cool stuff? How did I become so arrogant that I thought my mistakes were that weighty?! 

Why did I think that if God called me to prayer I had to then be VERY CAREFUL and VERY CONSERVATIVE and VERY CAUTIOUS and make sure that I was using only the best discernment and making the wisest choices and saying only the things I was certain were from God? 

This is a little bit ridiculous. Isn't God bigger and stronger and wilder and huger and a frillion times more brilliant? Isn't he my father? Who delights in me? Who takes care of me? Who gives me rest? Who only gives me good gifts? Isn't he the safest most secure place? 

I've said YES to a lot of churchy stuff this year and I've grown the most in the places where I said NO to fear. I hate writing that, because I've hated reading it so many times. "OH YEAH, FANCYPANTS BLOGGER? EXACTLY HOW DO YOU SAY NO TO FEAR? HOW NICE FOR YOU!" But I guess it wasn't so much saying NO to fear as putting myself in a place of great humility, or maybe just accepting who I am and who God is. Me = tiny, weak, beloved human. God = The Almighty who died for me. Is there anything I can do to mess that up? 

If God the Almighty called me to prayer, then dudes, I better pray. I better practice. I better learn. I better find people who are wiser and more experienced than me. I better experiment and try something to see if it's what God wants to do. And if it isn't? If I didn't hear right? He is STILL delighted with me and gently turns me towards his face. 

Jack was riding without training wheels last summer, but according to my parents this weekend, he couldn't even get started on his bike. I think something might have happened, because he seems weirdly anti-bike, not even wanting to look at it, let alone try. I'm not disappointed in him, I'm a little sad trying to figure out what happened to make him feel this way. We're going to put the training wheels back on, at least one, and start over, make it a fun and successful thing again. I'm not worried about it. I feel like we know what to do for him. And shoot, if we know what to do for Jack, how much more does our Father in heaven know what to do for us? 

Phillip is out with friends tonight and the kids are all asleep. I think I'm going to play the guitar for a bit. I know it won't last - this is probably yet another of my Fleeting Short-Attention-Span Interests, but right now it's fun and life giving and I totally don't care that I suck. (I'm getting BETTER!) 

Oh... and I just wanted to say that my biggest hope for this dorky churchy blog was that it would be accessible to people who AREN'T churchy types. And I think all this prayer talk has maybe been fairly INaccessible, even for churchy types. I'm not sure. I occasionally go overboard in my, ah, open book-ness. It's just the thing I feel like I'm IN right now, and I saw that Flannery O'Connor quote on Pinterest - something about how I don't know what I think until I read what I say. Yes. That is me. But if there is something you wanted me to write about, or something to make all of this MORE accessible, let me know. 

 

Thinking out something Phillip mentioned

Last night Phillip said something to me that totally threw me off guard and now I can't stop thinking about it. Except: why? Why did it throw me? He said, "It sounds like, if you want to keep doing this, maybe you shouldn't go to Catholic church anymore." 

I was telling him about my day yesterday, praying for and with two old friends, which was such a good and full and lifegiving experience for all three of us, I think. The purpose was more "spend time doing serious praying" than "address serious issues with prayer", but of course to do the first you have to do the second. And for me what was good was the experience of guiding it. There were only three of us, they were not people I necessarily had to lead, but there was still a way that I more or less knew what to do next and what might be good and yes, it felt like The Thing I'm Supposed To Do. Or not even that. More like The Thing I AM. 

So I'm telling Phillip about it and maybe he was thinking about it from the perspective of Career. I have no bigger supporter when it comes to things like going away for a week to learn about intercession. He DOES think of it as gaining experience, learning more, finding more opportunities - but so do I! I don't think that's a bad perspective to have. But I hadn't gone all the way to "maybe I should SWITCH RELIGIONS".

Holy cats. So I'm just trying to figure out what I think about that. On one hand, I can see it happening. I truly honestly can. Even though it would be a HUGE shift, it might make some people unhappy and all that, if I truly thought God was calling me somewhere different, I'd like to believe I have enough integrity to follow, whatever the risks. I think I would.

On the other hand - HUH? For so long - and just recently! - I've felt confirmed in my place as a Catholic with a toe in other stuff. Confirmed AND affirmed. 

I think Phillip has a point. There is nothing at my church right now that can help me grow or train me up in intercessory prayer.* And I think I SHOULD be looking for places and opportunities that can do that. I really do. It's time for me to take it seriously, be proactive about it. 

But as I write it out, switching churches doesn't seem like the answer. At least not right now. For one thing, any good Catholic knows you don't go to church so they can train you up in intercessory prayer DUH. You go to worship God in community and receive his body and blood. Bonus points for good music and a priest who can give a decent homily! (SHOOT FOR THOSE BONUS POINTS, CATHOLIC CHURCHES!) I shouldn't be thinking of church as a place to educate me and further my career. I mean, I think it would be awesome if it COULD do that? But it's not the THING. Right? 

I guess what I'm feeling right now is: go to my church for church, go other places for for other stuff. Retreats, seminars, conferences, other churches even. I don't know. That seems like the best answer right now. 

 

*I am purposely leaving out the Catholic Charismatics. I can't explain why, but going that route has never felt like the right one to me. I honestly do need to investigate that more thoroughly and come up with a better answer than "it doesn't feel right", but that's where I am with THAT. (Besides, the closest charismatics are three times as far away as my current parish. BOO.)

Things nerds do with their Saturdays

I'm coming up on a slew of busy weekends. This one is Seattle Public Schools' midwinter break (they're off Friday through Monday) and we'd talked about heading out to the mountains somewhere to play in the snow. but planning it got overwhelming and OH WELL because now my kids are going to some Chinese New Year thing Saturday night with their grandparents which means I get a night out with my husband. WAY better than playing in the snow. 

But anyway, I just have a bunch of stuff coming up that I have to THINK about and PLAN for and another "hmm, who is going to watch my kids so I can fly away and do a totally self-indulgent thing just for myself AGAIN?" (It'll work out, yes?)

Okay, but NEXT Saturday I am going to do something entirely new, which is have a little day retreat with two friends I almost never see. One of us doesn't have children and we're going to meet at her house and, well, pray. I think we will spend most of the day together, just catching up and talking and praying. It's partly because we want and need prayer, but also partly because we need to practice!

Doesn't that sound silly? Why would you need to practice prayer? I'm not sure that you do, actually. But for me, anyway, it's definitely something I WANT to practice. It's not really something where the more I do it, the better I am at it - more like the more I do it, the more I learn, the more I know, the deeper and greater the experience. 

Also, for this "retreat" I have volunteered to put together the Agenda. Heh. Program? Itinerary? I mean, not that the three of us are going to adhere to a Strict Schedule (although it's true that the words "strict schedule" make my heart go pitter pat.) But one of these girls I haven't seen in YEARS, the other I see once or twice a year, it's not like we're going to automatically know what to do or how to make things work. Also we could TOTALLY fritter our day away snacking and chatting and YES LET'S DO THAT but also let's pray a bunch too.

They're people I've known for a really long time and totally trust with stuff like this and I'm REALLY EXCITED. Stressed, because it's the first of three weekends where I'm just Not Going To Be A Parent and the logistics that go along with that. And super stinking excited because dudes! This is what I wanna DO!

I think at first we'll just do some catching up and sharing about where we are in our prayer lives at age Thirty Something. I think I want to ask us what we're hoping for out of this day to ourselves. And then we'll just spend the rest of the time listening to God. I think. And I have a quick list of ways to do that, maybe some new ideas, things to try out. One thing I've learned is that it's totally okay to practice. Don't know how to pray a particular way? Feel stupid? Not sure what you're hearing is really God? He's cool with that. He's bigger than all of your confusion and mistakes. It's good to throw it out there, try it, see what happens. 

It always sounds like the most boring tedious thing - sit for hours praying? But it ISN'T. I know. 

Oh, and it's Lent so maybe I should toss in something appropriately Lenty. Maybe one of those nice Catholic simple soup suppers. Hee. 

OH LENT. You spring on me EVERY YEAR and I never know what to do with you! I haven't even written my obligatory What I'm Doing For Lent This Year post. (Possibly because I HAVEN'T DECIDED. I'd say I won't be getting an A+ in church this term except I think I flunked Lent LONG AGO.)

I am Zacchaeus (alternatively titled: who actually knows what I wrote here, I just wrote until I was done? SORRY)

Perhaps the biggest thing that happened at Urbana, the biggest miracle, more amazing than the hundreds of students who signed up for long-term missions and the students who became Christians and the multitude of other ways that God moved amongst 17,000 college students, more amazing than all of that, was the simple fact that I was fairly useless as a member of the prayer team and I feel fine about it. 

Here, I'll restate that: there were several prayer times when I didn't hear God AT ALL, in a place where EVERYONE ELSE was hearing God and in WILDLY POWERFUL WAYS, but I (deep breath) 1. did not and 2. AM FINE WITH IT. 

You guys know that's my thing, right? THAT IS MY THING. 

I've waited weeks to see if I could put this into words and... well, I still don't know if I can. I'll just start? I guess? And see where it goes? 

Almost right away, as we prayed for the students attending Urbana in our first prayer shift, I began to empathize and identify with them. Other people would pray against the students assuming they already know everything there is to know, that they would examine their own characters instead of the characters of others, that they wouldn't be entering ministry because it was "the next step" or "what a good Christian would do"... And I would feel DEFENSIVE. Like I wanted to interrupt our prayer time and say, "HEY. Let me explain WHY they're like this! It makes sense!" And I realized... yeah, it's because I used to be one of them. 

Eons ago Phillip and I made preparations (preparations driven nearly 100% by me) to teach English in China with a missionary organization. I mean, we had been accepted to the program, told everyone, had a date to start a summer of training, ETC. It wasn't until I had a most spectacular anxiety breakdown that it occurred to me: I didn't actually want to go. 

I've written about this before (I think) and I won't go through it all again, but it turns out, if you're just going off to do God's will without giving any thought to whether it really IS God's will, as in you're doing this just because it sounded good and you're supposed to do something like this and you told everyone you were going to do it and you can't back out NOW... yeah. 

It made sense, in an embarrassing way, that I was defensive. I was totally the kid we were praying about. Which is how I ended up receiving prayer from the group, sort of standing in for the students, as an act of intercession. 

(I KNOW. Anyone who wants a primer on all the ways intercessory prayer people are BIZARRO, shoot me an email.) 

God said plenty during our time together, but I'm just going to focus on what I think he was saying TO me ABOUT me. Obvs. Is a blog, after all. 

He was saying: You don't have to do that. You don't have to do anything. You don't have to be anyone. You don't have to know anything. You don't have to be good at anything. You don't have to be useful. You don't have to worry. You don't need to act. You don't need to say anything. You don't need to know what to do. There is actually nothing you can do or be or say or produce that will make me love you more than I already love you. Do you realize that? That I ALREADY love you?

I didn't hear it all at once, of course. And I thought he was saying it about the students because I was there to pray for students, not for myself, and that would be doing intercession WRONG and I don't want to do anything WRONG or in the WRONG WAY GOD FORBID. 

I heard only one other thing from God that week. It was when I was sitting in Adoration in the Catholic student lounge area, just sort of hanging out and enjoying Being Catholic in what has been, in my past, a Decidedly Not Catholic Environment, and I heard God say: This is your Mongolia. 

HAAAA. I will explain. One of the very first speakers told the students about giving up his chance to make (literal) millions, instead choosing to be a missionary with his wife and daughter in Outer Mongolia. "My parents left poverty in Asia so I could have a better life. Aaaand I chose to live in poverty in Asia," he said. And so he asked us, "Where is YOUR Mongolia?" 

God is not sending me to China or Africa or anywhere else, he has plopped me down, one foot in Catholic church, one foot in ...not Catholic church. I mean, I've been there forever. But at Urbana, God confirmed for me that yes, this is right where I should be.

(OH GOODY!)

But other than that? NADA. Your whole JOB as an intercessor is to HEAR FROM GOD. You are PRAYING. FOR HOURS. It's amazing, honestly, the way those hours fly by, the ways God speaks to your little group of people. But not me! Most of the time I was just sitting there, sometimes wondering what was wrong with me, most of the time feeling pretty lame, often wondering what the rest of my team thought about my utter uselessness. 

Until the last couple of days. I'm not sure I ever opened my mouth during those prayer shifts. I'm not sure I had a single prayer-related thought, quite honestly. I was simply showing up, putting in my time, and... enjoying it. Was that even possible? I've spent years and years and YEARS of my life beating myself up during prayer times when I can't hear anything, when I'm not contributing to the group, when I'm not leading the way I think I should be leading, when I'm SUPER DOWN about my WHOLE SELF. I have never ever broke out of that. I've gotten better, I'm easier on myself than I used to be, but every time I don't "perform" I berate myself internally, feeling like I've failed God and everyone else. 

PERFORMANCE - that's the crux of a three, for all you enneagram scholars. If you don't relate, it's not your thing. You have another thing. My thing is that if I don't do it well, if I don't succeed, if I don't PERFORM, no one will love me. 

But there I sat feeling totally, wholly, marvelously, and beautifully loved, not only by God but by my team! It was perfectly clear to me that I was supposed to be there with them, even if I felt like I didn't have anything to add. I was not worried, I was not embarrassed, I was not ashamed, I was not angry, I was... okay, at the risk of sounding totally dorky (which I'm sure has already happened multiple times in this post) I was simply sitting there in God's presence, being me. Which is all he requested. 

You guys, I really don't think I have EVER felt that way before. 

One of our last days we sat in the back of a giant bible study. They were covering Luke and that morning was the passage about Zacchaeus, the short man who climbs the tree to get a better look at Jesus. The students seemed to be discussing every single thing about that passage that didn't really matter. It felt like no one was getting it. But then this guy stood up and said, "I am Zacchaeus." And we were all like, "Duuuuuude." He went on to say that he works at one of the companies that caused the mortgage crisis, he's still there, he makes good money, he is Zacchaeus! 

It was sort of this breaking point, where suddenly everyone had the opportunity to see themselves clearly. To identify with a sinner instead of being comfortable in your Good Christian-ness. (Not that everyone who works for a mortgage company is a sinner - you see my bigger point here, yes?) It was just powerful to identify your Thing, the way you are a tax collector - and see that Jesus knows your name, asks to stay at your house, welcomes you gladly, all before you say you'll give to the poor and pay everyone back. He loves us already. 

I don't think I did a very good job here - this really IS just writing and seeing where it goes - but something happened for me that week. When I identified with those students, when I shared why, when people prayed for me, something happened. Something healing.