Prayer Emails from Laura

by    2nd October 2008    0 responses

email

(This in no way a rip off of C S Lewis’ Prayer Letters to Malcolm)

Sometimes the Christian life is amazing. Sometimes you walk around and little birds come to rest on your shoulder. They sweetly tweet Handle’s Messiah into your ear, as you walk around the garden in your white sheet and sandals, deeply engrossed in a very ‘deep’ prayer for all of the homeless sea turtles around the world.

But sometimes it’s not like this. Or at least sometimes for me it isn’t like this. Sometimes whilst the rest of the congregation is in a state of religious ecstasy I’m wondering what’s for lunch. There are occasions when everyone else in church seems to be deeply engrossed in the sermon and I’m thinking about rugby. There have been intense prayer sessions where I fell asleep (this by the way is why monks traditionally wear those big hoods – that way no-one can see their eyes when they’re supposed to be praying).

Praying isn’t always easy, reading the Bible isn’t always easy either. God can sometimes feel a million miles away, and during those times you can feel like you are the most rubbish Christian in the world.

I feel like this quite a lot, but one of the big things that has helped me to cope with this has been the knowledge that I am not alone in this struggle. One friend in particular has helped me to realize this through a series of e-mails which I found incredibly encouraging.

So for all of those frustrated saints out there here is my ‘Prayer E-mail from Laura’:

From: laura@…

To: phil@…

01/03/2006

Subject: Hello Fallen Saint ;-)

Hey Phil

Thanks so much for your e-mail the other day!  I can always count on you to make me laugh, and leave me with a slightly bemused, but affectionate smile! Hope you escape the police…..

Your letter made me think LOTS which is good. I can really empathize with the part about feeling like you and God used to be tight and now you’re acquaintances. I started to realize why that is. You see I have been placing my worth in doing ’stuff’. PGCEs have a way of making you feel like your very existence depends on how well you teach. Last term I was permanently stressed and striving to be better. This term things have started to fall into place, and I’m realizing that I am becoming a better teacher, but in the process have become a nominal Christian. I think the problem is that I feel called to become a teacher, but the calling has got in the way of what God has called me to even more which is just to be his friend!

The biggest battle of my Christian life has been that of guilt. It has haunted me so much that at times it’s almost been a physical pain. I have lived with the feeling that you have during exam season, that wherever you are and whatever you’re doing, you OUGHT to be revising (actually Phil, having seen you during exam time I’m not sure if that is an analogy you’ll be able to relate to). In my every day life I constantly feel like I should be praying or being nice to people or witnessing or something. And it causes such spectacular burn out at times – no one can live like that all the time. So I just give up! I just go “nope, can’t do it anymore, don’t want to, not going to pray, not going to witness” – but in the long run that only makes the guilt worse.

The last couple of months, during my school placement, has been one of those times – lesson planning and just managing not to be eaten by my pupils have been enough to ‘do’ and the thought of ‘doing’ all my ‘Christian’ things too has just been too much.

BUT where sin increased grace increased all the more- the incredible thing has been that on the rare occasions I have come crawling back to God I have been met only by grace and compassion- no voice saying “why haven’t you prayed or read your bible” – just concern and care and love! It’s awesome because God is using my burn out to just show that when he said “it is finished” he really meant it.

God has been impressing on me that story about Mary and Martha. Martha is fussing about in the kitchen whilst Mary is just sitting at Jesus’ feet listening to him. When Martha asks Jesus to make Mary help he said to her “you are worried about many things, but only one thing is needed”. It’s become such a Christian cliché, but really God is so wanting us to just sit at his feet. We don’t have to sing the latest Chris Tomlin song, read Everyday with Jesus or do the classic ‘quiet time’ things to make God smile – just sitting at his feet makes him grin from ear to ear.

It’s something I will probably never quite get until the day when God really does call me out in front of thousands of people and declares that I am ‘acceptable’ to him, but its been awesome today just having a much needed fresh revelation of the trust.

Anyways, I gotta go eat, teaching makes me extra hungry!

Take care

God Bless

Laura

xxx

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