Prayer/Housewife

 In Malcolm Guite's Word in the Wilderness, he ends a series of poems following George Herbert's "Prayer" by suggesting that readers might be encouraged to write their own poem imaging prayer. Guite wrote "Prayer/Walk". This is my "Prayer/Housewife"

A whispered conversation in the dark;
remembering when it's easier to forget; 

the calm within a crowd of clatt'ring noise
(My children make requests - they do not whisper, or forget) 

a holding when I feel I'm letting go,
and letting go of things long held too dear; 

the bread found in the pantry at the front,
and at the back, the hoped-for, hidden chocolate; 

short walk to see the sun set by the pond,
regardless of the kitchen's dirty pans; 

hot shower after hours of grimy toil,
hastening to repose, tranquility snatched in bits,

need, want, and ought all bundled into one;
act of duty, spring of sudden joy.

 

December Prayer

I have begun to note my annual propensity to write early winter poetry as a way of lamenting and comforting the loss of the fair seasons. My eyes almost ache at looking out the window on gray trees and browning grass, and so I must adorn the drear with words. December Prayer is my offering for 2020

We do not see Thee smiling on the land,
But hear the cries of swift departing birds,
Alone the sharp wind sweeps the plundered sky
Between the quaking arms of naked trees.

Far gone from us the sudden hot embrace
Of thunderstorms upon the panting earth,
Rain rushing warm and sweet into our dust
To drench with green each thirsty blade and leaf.
The winter skies despair, lie down, and weep
Long chilling tears into the withered grass.

The outskirts of Thy city in the clouds,
Piled golden eastward of the setting sun -
Those shining trumpet calls of summer's dusk
Have vanished with the dawning of the dark,
And westward glows the hasty yellow gleam
Of noon's surrender to the gaping night.

Yet though we do not see Thee, Thou art near -
Thy mercy is Thy name, Emmanuel.
Come unto us as tender cov'ring snow,
As cardinal flames alight the frozen trees,
As sunrise turns to gold the frosted ground,
Great Lover, give us glimpses of Thy grace.
Thy ways of love surpass what we can tell,
And winter is Thy home, Emmanuel.

 

 

What To Do, What To Do?

If news media reports, television announcements, and social media trending topics could be weighed in a balance, I wonder what the daily tonnage would be? Surely it would be a weight too burdensome to be borne. Even the fraction of the stuff that the average American tends to gather for their sack of daily worries is too heavy for my taste, so I try to accumulate as small a load as possible. But I still end up on many days with a chunk of discouraging information about the state of things...and oh, what to do with it? Especially for mothers, every bit of baddish news adds a weight of care to our concern for our children. What do I do as a mother with another piece of news that reminds me what a dangerous, broken world I will have to send my child to face? I don't have to list the variety of depressing issues available for us to consider - anyone reading this probably knows them all too well. 

But to make the illustration concrete, here is a piece of something I happened to pick up yesterday from a Washington Post article on Trump attacking someone on Twitter - "Her phone began ringing with callers leaving threatening messages that were often sexual in nature." One thinks, Ah, poor lady! but a mother thinks, How awful that our nation is increasingly full of predators, and I have this sweet baby girl - oh God, help! Mamas know this thought sequence really well. But I paused in my sorrowful prayer and thought What DO I do? What do I want for my children? This world is just going to be nasty until Jesus comes back, and I can't always protect my children. What do I seek for them? What can I give them? and the words came to my mind - "Holding fast to the word of life (Php. 2:16)." Yes. Yes! This is what I want for them. This is what I will labor to give them and pray to see made real in them - the truth about God, the gospel of Jesus, the whole counsel of Scripture, the grand, sweet promises, the unshakable hope, the words that bring life to the soul, that sustain the believer through every trial and carry them onward to Heaven, that nothing on earth can take away from them. Truly, if the bad things on the news happened to my children - and yet, they held fast to the word of life - it would be enough.

Yes, the worst could happen - that a child does not hold to the word of life. But the battle cry of every mother's heart should be, Not if I can help it! Or for the more vigorous among us, Over my dead body! This is done, not simply by force-feeding the tots a pile of memory verses -though that doesn't much hurt! - but pressing into the solid comfort of the Word of God myself. I can't give what I don't have. But when it comes to what to do with 'the stuff out there', I can use those heavy lumps of bad news, and plunk them down on the lever of my determination to hold fast to the word of life before my children - to know and cherish the word of God for myself, and so doing to set it more faithfully before them. To use another metaphor - the colder the thermometer drops outside, the more wood you throw on the fire. Let me be found strengthening my soul with the Word of God, and when my children need strength, it will be the first thing I give them.

Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure. Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
(Philippians 2:13-16 ESV)

Art ~ Munkácsy, Mihály, Woman Carrying Faggot, 1873

Consider the other side of the battle on The Impossible Goal.

A Prayer for Our Town

Every time I go to the local grocery store, or the library, or just about anywhere that isn't going back over the border into Virginia, I have to drive past a disturbing assortment of "gentleman's clubs" (oh so un-aptly named!) locally known as strip clubs, as well as the adult store, pubs and other questionable establishments. Giving thanks that my little ones in the backseat can't read signs yet, I also feel burdened to pray and to act toward our nearest town's great traffic in sin.

What can one tired, hands-full mama do? Praying is a lot. I asked the ladies at our small group to pray with me and listening to one of them pray, I realized that she was latching on to specific requests for different people involved, and that I needed to do the same. I started crafting a prayer, with a dream to print and post on every public bulletin board and church resource table in town. "Take one and pray with me wherever you are at 8pm" or something like that. But for now, it's starting right here with me.

A Prayer for Our Town

God, we confess that we are a people who follow our selfish desires more than love for our neighbor. We have thought, spoken and acted in ways that are unclean and dishonoring to you. We have not done what we should. We pray that you would cleanse us and change our hearts.

We pray that you would bring righteousness to this town, specifically that you would shut down the strip clubs in our town, where your glory and honor are despised. Turn the hearts of each club manager to do right, and to help our community instead of harming it.

We pray that you would provide club dancers and other troubled women in our town with good, better jobs, that you would cleanse them, restore them, and show them your mercy and love. Lord, deliver them!

We pray that you would turn the hearts of men to their wives and families, to love women instead of lusting for them, to build up what is broken in their lives and to seek you above all. Give us whole families who will love and serve you.

We pray that you would turn the hearts of every man, woman and child in this town to You.  

All this is a work that only You can do, so that is why we ask You to do it in the name of Jesus 

Amen.

Pop Stars in the News and Thinking Like a Christian

A little while ago, a friend of mine posted to Facebook a video of an interview with the newly-spiritual Justin Bieber. I was intrigued and hopeful as I watched, but was disappointed to see that in all this troubled young man's reaching after God, he had never grasped the real gospel, true repentance and faith in Christ. (I also wished that someone would muzzle the incredibly banal interviewer.) How good it would be for someone come into his life and build sound doctrine on the few things he's grasped.



But that wasn't the end of my thoughts on the topic. If it was, the thoughts wouldn't be nagging me to write about this Bieber thing instead of taking a nap on the couch. There are lots of videos out there of people with shallow doctrine on which we could make judicious comments for the rest of our free time. But there was something deeper. What won't leave my mind is what this video did to my feelings about pop stars and the crazy world out there in general.

First, I have to say that I believe it a waste of time and compromise of pursuing holiness for believers to try to keep up with pop stardom. We have better things to do. But while living a normal life, we do end up hearing or seeing something about the most notable in the limelight. And how do we respond? I was thinking about this especially in regard to the young and dissolute Justin Bieber, who over the past few years became among the most despised, ridiculed figures in conservative America. Who among the 20-something generation hasn't heard at some point a humorous comment which referenced Bieber?

But when I watched this video, I was struck by this one thing. While we were continuing to mock Justin Bieber for his follies, the young man himself was feeling his misery and seeking help. And who of us were praying for him? Again, I'm not hoping that Christians will start reading People magazine to find prayer requests - I'm thinking about our general attitude to things we hear. It doesn't take the Holy Spirit to despise an immoral pop star. It does take the Holy Spirit to be grieved that another person is sinning (so publicly especially) and falling short of God's glory, and yet, yet they may be justified freely by His grace in Jesus Christ. I don't think Bieber reached this point - and yet, he could, and so could any other by God's grace.

Christians with the Holy Spirit should be glad to know as little as possible of the vain doings of the world, but what we do hear should not make us smirk. It's fun for our pride to lift itself up on the rubble of the popular. That's why we enjoy laughing at them, and in one sense it is good to keep a perspective that the world's pursuits are vain and empty ("the world is passing away along with its desires"- 1 John 2:17). But Christ looked at the rich young ruler and loved him (Mark 10:21), and he calls us to die to self and follow in His steps. We may not be acting Christianly every time we laugh - perhaps we ought to hope, pity and pray.

Eagerly Waiting

"Lord, give us much wisdom 

to teach our children your Word, 

so that when you come to them, 

they will be eagerly waiting."

 - Corrie Ten Boom

"The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, 

but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. 

So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.” 
-John 3:8 ESV

Little Laughing Flowers

Only two weeks remain for my husband to finish his college studies before graduation. He's been a soldier-student for all the time I've known him, and now a soldier-student-husband-father. The journey to finishing college has been long and arduous for this man of whom I am proud and for whom I pray.

Lately those prayers have been much of this one: "Lord, provide for him, provide a job, provide for us." Every time I walk outside and see the world with its trees and homes spread out beneath the sky, I remember our lives beneath God's face and I am stirred up to ask Him again for blessings. (How we need often to stand beneath the sky and remember our Creator!) But in the moment of prayer, my sense of need sometimes rises up against my sense of God and tries to rule my heart. What will we do without this thing for which I pray? How hard will it be to wait for this thing for which I pray? The worry rises  and the prayers rise back, perhaps more weakly. A fresh breezes come to my face and pass by, the grasses wave in it, humble golden dandelions blooming in squat glory near the pavement lift bold faces to the sun, new leaves bob proudly on dark twigs of trees above my head, and other trees revel in brief attire of glorious perfumey blossoms. 

All of it seems suddenly to be laughing at me. Do you not see, silly child of Eve, how well He has provided for us? Does not the spring always come for us to deck ourselves with joy and feed the air with beauty? And are not you the daughter of our Maker? Hohoho! Fret not! The breezes blow to me a dozen reassuring smiles from grass and flower, cloud and leaf. 

"How much more valuable are you than they?" So said Jesus. He wants me to look at all of it, the flowers, the sky and the birds, and to remember why they are there just so, and that I can trust their Maker to make something beautiful out of my life.

Near, by the footfall,
Springeth a joy,
Like a new-blown little flower
Growing for thee, to make thee glad.
Let thy countenance be no more sad,
But wake the voice of joy and health within thy dwelling,
And let thy tongue be ever telling,
Not of fear that lieth grey,
But of little laughing flowers beside the way.
For the Lord is always kind 
Be not blind, be not blind  
To the shining of His face,  
To the comforts of His grace.  
He hath never failed thee yet.  
Never will His love forget.  
O fret not thyself, nor let
Thy heart be troubled,
Neither let it be afraid.

- Amy Carmichael

Lean Hard

I have mixed feelings about my copy of the classic devotional, Streams in the Desert. Sometimes it hits the heart of things just right, and sometimes it seems to totally miss the point of an obscurely considered text. But I've plugged away at it, and am sometimes rewarded with treasures like this poem - the kind of piece that you read and suddenly have urges to plaster on every flat surface because it's too good to not think about all the time. It's really just a call to prayer, but sometimes we need to be told to pray in ways that remind us what exactly that is, and why the duty is our most precious privilege.

Child of my love, lean heard

And let me feel the pressure of thy care;

I know thy burden, child, I shaped it;

Poised it in Mine Own hand; made no proportion

In its weight to thine unaided strength,

For even as I laid it on, I said,

"I shall be near, and while she leans on Me,

This burden shall be Mine, not hers;

So shall I keep My child within the circling arms

Of My Own love." Here lay it down, nor fear

To impose it on a shoulder which upholds

The government of worlds. Yet closer come:

Thou art not near enought. I would embrace thy care;

So I might feel My child reposing on my breast.

Thou lovest Me? I knew it. Doubt not then;

But loving Me, lean hard.

- from Streams in the Desert by L. B. Cowman

Don't Forget

This morning I awoke to one of those days - those days when everything looks like it has a gray film over it and your body feels like someone inserted several yards of cheap twine into your skeletal system and several rocks in your digestive system to boot, when you are peeved at everything that is non-ideal and constantly realize you are quite non-ideal yourself. I read in my morning devotions of the Lord coming in the dark clouds and prayed "Lord, help us to see you in shadows" and then proceeded with my day in the unstructured and jelly-like fashion in which it had begun.

The main item on today's to-do list was to file our taxes. ASAP. I had little idea of what I was getting into - I figured a few hours and completion before hubby left for school. It was a dreaded task, but I figured tax filing to be an appropriate use of a day in which I already felt like a half-drowned crab and did not hope to accomplish much else useful. So to the task!

Several hours later, with the question of where in the world Schedule C was for my self-employment taxes, and how I could file "married filing jointly" with this and that confusion, the crab was nearly drowned and slipping out of its shell.
Hubby would come and gently put a hand on my shoulder and I would flinch violently and start half crying. Hubby was tender-hearted and kind and said he was very sorry it was so hard, but he had to study his Latin and really appreciated my doing this for him. I attested to my willingness to trade my task for his.
I said I wanted something to bite. He suggested a carrot. I grimaced.
I was through almost the entire project on one tax filing site, but knew that one piece of info was not correct. I didn't know how to fix it and so couldn't consent to the final declaration that I was not committing 'perjury'. Therefore, it was necessary to go to another tax filing site and start ALLL OVER AGAIN. Whoopee. More tedious info-huntings. Oh, where was hubby's 2011 AGI? He had left for school and work - oh, and I forgot to send his apple to hold him till he finished work at 8pm...What a day. This is what it felt like to be a carnal Christian. A woman with PMS doing taxes.

And then I realized a sore negligence - How many times in this wretched process had I lifted my heart, even ever-so briefly, to Heaven and said "Lord, help me!" The Lord had promised His grace to be sufficient for every need, yet I had never asked him for it. Carnal Christian indeed. I had been acting like a crab of the mud rather than a child of the King, and sadly dishonored his Majesty by so doing. A brief break for tea and Elizabeth Prentiss had given me back my senses and brought me to this realization. I prayed, "Lord, help me, help us, with this. We need you."

A chat from hubby. He had found his AGI online. I proceeded to finish the process with a calm, cheerful heart, wondering still at my past folly. How could I have forgotten?

The throne of grace is always open. It is not just for fire, death and cancer. It is for taxes, tummyaches, and burnt toast - not to make them go away, but to help us honor the Savior in them. How many times have I dishonored the Lord in the little things? Grace is there to help me bear the fruit of love, joy and peace, and I should not let these depart from me with the potato slice that departed the cutting board to unknown regions below. I may feel like a crab, but I am not a crab. I am a child of God. It takes humility to see that I am not just a wretch, but a redeemed wretch who mustn't be wretched anymore, but boldly enjoy the benefits bestowed by a reconciled God - and ask for more of them, and use them, as if there were no end to them - because there isn't.

The Best Lesson I'll Learn

"We cry, 'Abba, Father!'" - Romans 8:15

Several months ago, I read a sermon by Hugh Binning on this text, and found in it a truth that profoundly strengthened my soul to face adversity with gladness and comfort. Recently, I have had to begin practicing in earnest what I learned on that day. Before describing the circumstances that prompted such practice, here is the section of Binning's sermon that instructed me:

"It would not appear by the mean, low and indigent state we are now in that we have so great and glorious a Father, How many infirmities we are compassed about with! How many wants are we pressed with! Our necessities are infinite, and our enjoyments in no way proportioned to our necessities. Notwithstanding even this, the love and wisdom of our heavenly Father shows itself, and oftentimes more gloriously in the theatre of men's weakness, infirmities and wants, than they could appear in the absolute and and total exemption of his children from necessities.  Strength perfected in weakness, grace sufficient in infirmities, has some greater glory than strength and grace alone.  Therefore he hath chosen this way as most fit for the advancing of his glory, and most suitable for our comfort and edification, to give us but little in hand, and environ us with a crowd of continued necessities and wants within and without, that we may learn to cry to him as our Father, and seek our supplies from him.

This way of narrow and hard dispensations, that at first seems contrary to the love and bounty and riches of our Father, in the perfect view of it appears to be the only way to perpetuate our communion with him, and often to renew the sense of his love and grace that would grow slack in our hearts if our needs did not every day stir up fresh longing."

Oh, how we want to be settled in life. Our spirits yearn for security, and a knowledge that everything is in place for our comfort and necessities. But our Father's aim is not to have us settled. He often purposes to have us unsettled continually, that we may cry to Him continually.
Don't we all know the tendency in our hearts? We begin to get our lives in order and to feel satisfied that all is taken care of for the present, and our prayers become cool and tidy. We don't stop praying completely, but that desperate, "Lord, I NEED you right now! Oh help!" is far from us. Our Father loves to hear those words. He loves to be our hero and show us how well His love can sustain and rescue us in the midst of difficulty. So he will not leave His beloved children to be like the rich fool who said, "Soul, you have much good laid up for many years. Take life easy." Our Lord loves us too much for that.

So here is my opportunity. My husband has been away for 8 1/2 months, and hoping that the Army will bring him home at the stated time in two months so college can proceed as planned. We have no certainty that the timing will not change completely and send us back to the drawing board, with a faint "What now?" The least we can do is try to plan, and find an apartment to rent in time for his expected return. So we emailed, searched, discussed, and I finally went to Virginia to look at the few apartment options we had found. The first apartment didn't have a kitchen. The second one I looked at I fell in love with. It was just what we wanted -  affordable, new, beautifully situated - and after brief discussion, we emailed the owner our 'yes'. I came home. We waited for two days. At last we received a reply. The apartment would be rented to someone else. I said cheerfully, "God will provide something else" and then I broke down and cried.

But I am not writing all that for you to pity me. It's to illustrate Binning's text. See, after that news, we didn't know what to do, where to look - and still don't - and in my heart there begins to be a cry, "Oh Father, provide for us! Provide for us! Provide for us! Open a door for us!...Lord, what are going to do? Oh, provide for us!"  And there is the cry of the needy child to the Father, that would not have been there in the same way if the reply had been, "We'll send you a copy of the lease to look at as soon as possible." Whatever makes us say, "We'll just have to keep praying" is a direct dispensation of love from the Father who loves to hear His children pray. That helps me. That comforts me - because our Father is not cruel, loving only to hear us cry. He loves to answer our cries. "Ask, and it shall be given to you."

A Prayer for the 6th of November

I was reviewing the prayer in Isaiah 26 today, and found in it a prayer deeply relevant for the church awaiting the fate of their nation and feeling how little they can do.

            In the path of your judgments,

                        O LORD, we wait for you;

            your name and remembrance

                        are the desire of our soul.

          My soul yearns for you in the night;

                        my spirit within me earnestly seeks you.

            For when your judgments are in the earth,

                        the inhabitants of the world learn righteousness.

            If favor is shown to the wicked,

                        he does not learn righteousness;

            in the land of uprightness he deals corruptly

                        and does not see the majesty of the LORD.

O Lord, we long, day and night, to see Your glory,
though we must stand amid Your judgments on our world..
How will the wicked know Your majesty if you allow them to prosper?
Come, and teach us Your righteousness.

            O LORD, your hand is lifted up,

                        but they do not see it.

            Let them see your zeal for your people, and be ashamed.

                        Let the fire for your adversaries consume them.

We want the world to see Your faithfulness to us,
for we are Your people.
Oh that  all people would see Your glory.
Lord, open the blind eyes!

            O LORD, you will ordain peace for us,

                        for you have indeed done for us all our works.

            O LORD our God,

                        other lords besides you have ruled over us,

                        but your name alone we bring to remembrance.

You are our hope, sovereign Lord.
Our hope for peace
for righteousness
for salvation
Though men may rule over us
we look not to them, but to You.

            They are dead, they will not live;

                        they are shades, they will not arise;

            to that end you have visited them with destruction

                        and wiped out all remembrance of them.

We do not fear the wicked,
though they be the great rulers of earth.
They are shadows in your light,
passing breaths
When you arise to judge, they will be as nothing.
Oh forbid that we should fear the dust!

            But you have increased the nation, O LORD,

                        you have increased the nation; you are glorified;

                        you have enlarged all the borders of the land.

We are confident
Though the nations, even our nation and rulers, should perish
You will build your church, Your holy nation
As you have promised
The gates of Hell shall not prevail against her.
You will make her whole
You will make her holy
And You will be glorified

            O LORD, in distress they sought you;

                        they poured out a whispered prayer

                        when your discipline was upon them.

            Like a pregnant woman

                        who writhes and cries out in her pangs

                        when she is near to giving birth,

            so were we because of you, O LORD;

                        we were pregnant, we writhed,

                        but we have given birth to wind.

            We have accomplished no deliverance in the earth,

                        and the inhabitants of the world have not fallen.

O Lord, though we be under Your discipline for our sin
and share in suffering for the sins of our nation,
Yet we will cry out to You for deliverance.
For we are still Your people.
You have shown us our utter helplessness
In the face of Your judgments
We cannot save our nation, our church, or our own souls
We need You.

            Your dead shall live; their bodies shall rise.

                        You who dwell in the dust, awake and sing for joy!

            For your dew is a dew of light,

                        and the earth will give birth to the dead.

Here is our hope – that as You have promised
You will raise Your people from the dead
from spiritual death and mourning to songs of joy
from physical death to everlasting life
And we will live to praise You.

            Come, my people, enter your chambers,

                        and shut your doors behind you;

            hide yourselves for a little while

                        until the fury has passed by.

            For behold, the LORD is coming out from his place

                        to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity,

            and the earth will disclose the blood shed on it,

                        and will no more cover its slain.

But at present, we must see sorrow and suffering
For we dwell in the midst of a vile people
Who have shed innocent blood
And we are not free from vileness or innocent ourselves
But we will hide in the wounds of our Savior, Jesus
We will take refuge in His promises of deliverance
While we wait for You.
In unshaken confidence that You alone will make all things right.

(Isaiah 26:3-21 ESV)

...Who loves Thee

"I would love Thee, God and Father!

My Redeemer, and my King!

I would love Thee; for without Thee

Life is but a bitter thing

I would love Thee; ev'ry blessing

Flows to me from out Thy throne

I would love Thee; He who loves Thee

Never feels himself alone."

- Jeanne Marie Guyon

"...because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold." - Matt. 24.12

But oh Lord, not mine, please, please, not mine!

"If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love..." - John 15.10


Scripture from ESV

...A song that helps to pull along my wandering heart to where it ought to be

O Lord, I would delight in Thee
And on Thy care depend,
To Thee in every trouble flee,
My best, my only Friend.

When all created streams are dried,
Thy fullness is the same;
May I with this be satisfied
And glory in Thy Name.

No good in creatures can be found
But may be found in Thee;
I must have all things and abound
While God is God to me.

O Lord, I cast my care on Thee,
I triumph and adore;
Henceforth my great concern shall be
To love and please Thee more.

- John Ryland, 1777

Advice to my deceitful heart concerning its prayers...

Do not presume to counsel the One who has all knowledge. Though you plead your case before Him, do not consider it His wisdom to precisely comply with you, nor count your desires more sovereign than His. Is He not God? Does He not do as he pleases in the heavens and on the earth?
And yet, He has told you to pray - as a means for accomplishing His will....did you begin to think there was any other purpose for prayer?

Let not your prayers be the cries of a revolutionary in the streets, or the whisperings of a counselor sidling behind the throne, but the requests of a loyal subject bowing before the King, who delights in nothing so much as in seeing the will of the King be done.