lord, hear our prayer

"time... there's always time, on my mind
pass me by, i'll be fine... just give me time" - damien rice

these are the lyrics that popped into my head as i sat down to write today. the end of 2007- to the end of 2008 has been quite the year. in twelve (give or take) short months, there have been 6 deaths, 1 birth, 1 breakup, 1 move, 2 apartments, about 4 churches, 15 classes, 1 masters degree, 2 internships, 3 jobs, 100 cups of pumpkin spice latte, and on and on. my brother has said, more than once, that he is looking forward to 2008 being over. that's what i said in 2007. will we say it again in 2009? i don't want to be so future oriented than i miss the present, but i don't want to be so present oriented that i overlook implications for the future or forget lessons learned from the past. throughout the past year or so my mantra has been to "embrace the journey" and while i have been a witness to the "beauty in the breakdown" and can confidently stand of the faithfulness and goodness of God, i still find myself wondering what part i play in all of this... [you know, stacy - i stand out in my front yard and just stare at nothing while i think... just like dawson :) ] but seriously, we have figured out all of these "laws" of nature, equations that make sense of the world, theories that make sense of behavior, words or music that make sense of feeling - but still find ourselves in a seemingly uncontrollable world.

last night i sent out an email to many friends about the passing of a family friend. i explained that i, personally, felt unable to pray. i wasn't sure what to pray for - and my attempt to begin such a prayer brought on a feeling of nausea. so, last night, i wrote the above paragraph and then started to write a prayer as well. i've shared with my home group that it is hard for me to pray out loud sometimes - there's something about hearing my own words that makes me uncomfortable... possibly inauthentic. since sharing that, i have been praying out loud more often - yet my preferred style is through writing. so, last night i figured if i couldn't pray in my head or out loud, then certainly i could write something resembling my thoughts, desires, needs? i sat here and wrote for a good fifteen minutes... but it just wasn't feeling right. anything i attempted to write fell vastly short of conveying the depth of my prayer. i was frustrated with this, and just decided to go to bed. as i was logging out of my email i noticed that two friends had already responded to my email - both with written prayers. one as simple (yet loaded) as "spirit, give us words..." this really resonated with me because for the first time in a long time, i had no words. as a person who enjoys conversation and needs to process verbally, i find it extremely frustrating when i cannot, in any way, convey my feelings or my thoughts. this is different than deciding to not share them, however. so, last night - it wasn't that i didn't want to share - in actuality, i wanted to share very much... but i felt as if i had nothing to share. all i could muster was...
lord, hear our prayer.

and i think that's enough.