Tag Archives: Prayer

A simple melody

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I have a pretty simple voice. It is strong and I can carry a tune, but I was always a soprano in choirs so I can’t pick the alto line out of the hymnal like my mom. or make up a descant on top of the melody like my sister (the music therapist). But strong and steady I can sing the chorus and verses. As loud as you want it I can sing out. It came in handy from the back of the stage in the musicals I was in.

This summer as I was praying about what to do, what would honor God, what would restore me from the whirlwind of this school year, God moved my heart and settled on my guitar. The one I got for my twenty-first birthday. The one that has spent years in silence interrupted by a couple month stretches of me attempting to re-learn what I forgot.

While most of my friends spent their teenage years dreaming of a boy who could play them the guitar, I always wanted the guitar myself. I wanted to be able to play.

It is the simple melodies I am attracted to. Nothing on the radio or to remind me of high school. I am learning to play old hymns and songs from the toddler music class they have free at the Y, Old Macdonald and Twinkle Twinkle. Tonight I wanted to look up some songs from serenade night at Church camp I now sing as lullabies. I love anything you would sing around a campfire.

It is true that I heard the Lord tell me he would use my voice right there at that camp. I thought for a time He meant singing. I was drawn to my Mom’s old guitar because I thought I might need the skill.

I have since received a different vision for those same words, that the Lord would use my voice. I believe I am supposed to tell the stories I have been entrusted with, starting with my own. It is in a way the exact same thing I pictured when I was twelve. A simple story, a strong melody, the Lord leading, and I sing out. My taste in stories and songs are the same. I find the simple ones the most compelling, the old stories new again the most beautiful.

From Pee to Living Water

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I think sometimes I overlook miracles. Ones that happen everyday so they no longer seem impressive. They happen every day at my house, two under two lends itself to miracles. Two babies with clean diapers at the same time, synchronized nap times, first words, first steps, a not-yet-two-year-old who agrees to go along with the plan. They don’t happen all the time. But enough that I forget they are miracles.

Lord, allow me to pour out you Living Water.

But it is emotional miracles, change of heart miracles, miracles you can’t see I have been noticing lately. Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the healing, the manifestations, the return of $900 for your $500 deposit. I’ve seen them, and plan on seeing more. But the emotional miracles, the ones you can’t see. I’ve been seeing a lot of those lately.

Like the time just this weekend when God changed pee into living water. I wish I was speaking metaphorically here, but I am afraid that a misguided child snuck into a friends house and offered his practical joke in the form of peeing in her boot. A child that she could have ignored, but instead has been kind to. A child no one else thinks about much. His parents are too busy, too sick, too overwhelmed, too underserviced. The best that they can is not enough to meet the needs of the kids they have in the house. So the child sneaks into another house, and pees in a boot. Who knows why really, he probably doesn’t know himself.

The pee in the boot was not the miraculous part. It was the gross part. The miraculous part was the Living Water that was poured back out. The initial reaction was expected, I am calling the police (you should I responded) I am telling those kids I am done (be done I agreed) I am telling those parents that I don’t care how overwhelmed they are, they need to get a handle on those children (it is for the children’s own good I encouraged.) But then we prayed about it. And the bitter, stinky, gross puddle of waste that was pooling in our hearts was touched by the finger of God. And as the puddle rippled…..the piss in my friend’s heart was turned into Living Water. I love praying with Godly people.

I wonder if those kids would like to go to church with us? (I wasn’t so the church’s kids community could handle all that.) I had planned on asking those boys to walk my dog with me, I wonder why I never asked the parents. What would it look like if I were radically kind to those boys in direct response of being pissed on? It would look like Jesus. Like what Jesus did for us. What Jesus does for us. Even when we know we are doing wrong and continue it anyway, just because we feel like it.

I know that there are other miracles that are flashier, water to wine lets you continue to party. Manna every morning lets you keep walking. Being healed of blindness, lameness, leprosy; tumors disappearing all of these are glorious things. But turning a puddle of pee into living water, and watching someone pour it out to the pisser. How do you get more miraculous than that?

This post was written for Just Write. Go check it out!

We Talk Nice

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Oh language acquisition, how you teach me so so much about myself. The Peanut is quite chatty these days, and lately some of the phrases she has picked up are less than cute. As my car pooling buddy said yesterday of toddlers “they are like tiny mirrors being constantly held up to you.” After all, there are a very limited number of people the Peanut could be learning these words from. And perhaps I am not as nice as I once thought. Because I am constantly having to remind the Peanut, “We talk nice in this house.”

You see, the Peanut has picked up too phrases that are neither winning friends nor influencing people. The first phrase is this: have it. I wish that I could accurately type that phrase with the correct inflection. It comes out of that darling little mouth so quick it sounds like habit. But more like HABIT. It almost always is accompanied with her arms stretched out. It is usually followed with a full on fit if “it” is not in her arms within moments. “It” is often in reference to the Rooster…… Sorry kid, we can’t let you kill your sister. She is also still very good at MIIIIIINE!

The other phrase she picked up is moooove. This is mostly accompanied by pushing. She likes to direct this at me and the dog equally. Somehow she knows not to use this one on her dad. I could not for the life of me figure out where she was getting these phrases…until they came out of my mouth. The Peanut was taking a little too long to get into the door and I shoved my knee into her back and said…move. Oops. I guess I am the one who needs to start saying excuse me. And after that little epiphany it didn’t surprise me that much that “I’ll have that” and “Can I have it?” and “You can’t have it” are regularly occurring phrases in our household.

What I am realizing lately is that the same phrases the Peanut has been shouting at me lately are the ones I am most likely to shout at God. “God can I have it?” “Mine God it is mine!” “Let me direct that, move!” and the usual from both me and my daughter “Help!” I don’t want to continue with my toddler prayers. I want to talk nice too.