My Year Long Prayer

Mike and I celebrated our 30th anniversary and moved into our 20th abode this summer.

Since the beginning of this new adventure last August, I’ve prayed one prayer:

Teach me Your way, Oh LORD, that I may walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear Your Name. Psalm 86:11

Twenty-two moves into my life, I am still learning to lean into the brokenness that leaving friends, family and now children behind brings. Moving is hard. This move, especially, has been full of long, arduous days.

I pray:

Teach me Your way, Oh LORD, that I may walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear Your Name. Psalm 86:11

I am broken. Again. I lean in. It’s hard. I pray. Praying exposes my brokenness.. all my brokenness.. the brokenness of leaving and of being left. I am overwhelmed. My heart is silenced. Paralyzed. It can not feel; not pain, nor sorrow, nor joy, nor love. I can’t pray.

I mouth the words again:

Teach me Your way, Oh LORD, that I may walk in Your truth. Give me an undivided heart that I may fear Your Name. Psalm 86:11

I cry:

“Help. God. Please, help. Help me to lean in and not away. Help me to enter in with my whole heart. I can not gather all the broken pieces of my heart together. They are sharp. The pain is deep. Help!”

My desire to lean into the brokenness and pain is a desire live fully in the here and now. The pain and brokenness overwhelm me; knock me to the ground. I am so tired of being overwhelmed. I am tired being cut off from my heart.

I want to love with my whole heart. Brokenness and all. It’s important to be present.. to listen.. to live and give myself fully in each moment. I know that living this way is what afforded me no regrets when we lost Joel. I know that this is the way God calls us to live. I know that I must treat myself with grace, kindness and acceptance.

I do what I have the grace to do in each moment and try not to think about what it’s going to take to get through the next moments.

I remind myself of Jesus words and pray again for an undivided heart:

“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.” Luke 9:62

The fields I plow have been torn apart. I am not omnipresent. I am in one field one day and in another another. When I drive to Oklahoma, part of my heart is left in Alabama and when I drive to Alabama, part of my heart is left in Oklahoma. And truthfully in other states and countries, too.

And in eternity, too.

I have to trust my loving Father to watch over the fields I cannot see.

Elizabeth Stone wrote, “Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”

A huge chunk of my heart has been walking around Heaven’s golden streets for three and three-quarters years now.

I don’t have possession of my whole heart or my whole self. Grief ambushes, and in an instant I am reduced to tears. I STILL don’t want it to be true, though I can no longer deny it. There’s a gaping chasm in my heart that I can not close.

When I suppress the truth (the pain), it haunts me in my dreams. I wake myself up wailing, and can not console myself by saying that it was only a dream.

it is only a small part of the story. It’s only a small part of my story. God’s nail scarred hands are tenderly holding all the pieces of my broken heart; the parts scattered here on earth and the parts up in Heaven. One morning, this nightmare will be forever over, and He will bend down and wipe away the last of my tears and I will be fully, wholeheartedly me.

I often pray:

Psalm 39:4 “Lord, remind me how brief my time on earth will be.
Remind me that my days are numbered—how fleeting my life is.

5 You have made my life no longer than the width of my hand.
My entire lifetime is just a moment to you;
at best, each of us is but a breath.”

7 And so, Lord, where do I put my hope?
My only hope is in you.

Remembering that this life with all it’s heartache and trouble is short gives me hope. I’ve another, much better life waiting for me. My brokenness will not last forever.

I am comforted when I remember Jesus’ promise:

“I will not leave you as orphans, for I will come to you in a little while.” John 14:18

I am encouraged when I remember:

And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

I may not be able to see all that God is working together now, but one day I will.

As I drive from one state to another, I sing Christ for the Nations’ “Running” song and try not to press too hard on the gas:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wKAM4TvcQC0

“I hear the voice, the voice of the one I love,
He’s calling my name.
I hear the voice, the voice of the one I love,
He’s calling my name.

He’s saying, come up higher, you’ll hear the angels sing.
Come up higher my beloved,
Come up higher and leave this world behind.
You’ll find me to be beautiful

I AM RUNNING, RUNNING AFTER YOU,
YOU BECOME MY SOUL’S DELIGHT
I AM RUNNING, RUNNING AFTER YOU,
HERE WITH YOU I FIND MY LIFE

One thing have I desired, this will I seek after
To dwell in Your house forevermore
Now I’m running after, the thing that really matters
You’ve become my joy and song.”

Pressing in as He enables, and finding all the pieces of my heart hidden and faithfully guarded in Him,

Jenny

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