Category: writing to God

Post: To Make Familiar With a Subject


I pour out my complaint before Him;
I declare before Him my trouble.
(Psalm142:2 NKJV)

I sent these postcards to myself, as a type of diary
chronicling our trip on the Erie Canal.
Do you ever wish you could send a letter to God, addressed to His complaint department? What if you could send Him a thank you note? Or a postcard telling Him how much you love Him? 

Let’s get out the stationery. For this quiet time activity, I prefer the touch of pen to paper, but if you are tech savvy, adapt this idea with e-mail or a scheduled reminder text.


In 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time, Pam shares her thoughts on the topic of writing a letter to God:

Write a letter to God about your life. What would you like to see happen in the next three to six months? What would you like to learn about God? What requests would you like answered? Maybe you are at a special juncture  in life, have an obstacle to hurdle or circumstance you’d like to see change. Write out your feelings, goals and requests.

Place your letter in a self-addressed stamped envelope. Give the letter to a friend to mail back to you after three, six or twelve months. [Or send it to yourself, with an “open on” date written on the envelope.]

I found this idea helpful after the death of my father. I took a limited sabbatical…but after two months I still wasn’t feeling emotionally better. I wrote a letter to God about how I wanted to feel at the one-year anniversary of my father’s death. As I wrote the letter, I realized I was not going to be able to make this journey alone. I wrote down books to read. I contacted a grief counselor. I wrote out activities that I though would help me resolve my feelings and bring closure…ten months into the journey…I am much further along in my grief than I would have been if I had not take this quiet time with God to verbalize how I need him to heal me. 

There are some journeys we don’t want to go on, but writing to God about the difficult path ahead makes the road less formidable.

©Pam Farrel from 30 Ways to Wake Up Your Quiet Time (IVP). For more devotional books by Pam http://www.Love-wise.com



What kind of letter do you need to write to God? Is there a subject you need to share with Him in prayer?


To read all the posts in 31 Days of Quiet click here.
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Uncertain: Not Clearly Identified or Defined

 
Now faith means putting our full confidence in the things we hope for, it means being certain of things we cannot see. It was this kind of faith that won their reputation for the saints of old. And it is after all only by faith that our minds accept as fact that the whole scheme of time and space was created by God’s command—that the world which we can see has come into being through principles which are invisible.
(Hebrews 11:1-3 J.B. Phillips)
 
 
Hello all! I am honored to be guest posting with Dawn  over at Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith today. The past few weeks, we have been reading and responding to our journey through Writing to God.
 
Writing to God -40 Days of Praying With My Pen
 
My desire has been rekindled to express my love and passion for God through writing. I spend my days with pen and journal in hand, scribbling love notes, writing little poems, and just talking about life with Jesus. 
The prayers and writing prompts of Rachel G. Hackenberg in Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying with My Penhave opened new vistas as I meet with God on paper.
When Dawn asked me to share this week, I immediately offered the opportunity to God. When I read the prayer offering for Day 24: Uncertain, I decided to reflect on the prayer and the prompt for this week.
We all have questions and uncertainty in our lives. This prayer has edged itself into my heart, especially these lines:  “Is ‘Jesus’ the simple answer? Looking back, I see that you offered more puzzles than answers; that still seems to be true. So I will sit here, with palms open and unresolved prayers, O complex Jesus, if you will sit with me. This I ask, for lack of answers. Amen.” (Hackenberg)  
The angst that uncertainty produces in my heart desperately needed the comfort of this prayer.
 
Click here to read the entire post over at
Beneath the Surface: Breath of Faith
 
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Comfort: To Ease the Grief Of

 
Are the comforts of God too small for you,
or the word that deals gently with you?
(Job 15:11 ESV)
 

My reading list seems sparse this month. As I was looking at books for Lent, two titles caught my attention. One a familiar friend, the other a new acquaintance. Both books encourage writing as a way of prayer.



Love Letters to God: Deeper Intimacy Through Written Prayer (Lynn D. Morrissey)

This first book is beautiful like its author. I’ve read it once before, and consider Lynn a dear friend and person who has fueled my passion for journaling.

This book is more than a guide to writing your prayers to God, it is an invitation to rekindle your relationship with God as the Lover of our Souls. As I enter the pages and the stories of Lynn’s adventures with God, as well as her struggles, my heart finds rest and revival at the same time. My imagination is drawn to the garden of my soul, and I long to tarry in the presence of our Savior.

Today this line, prompted a prayer of examen: “Naming our grief is the first step toward healing.” That one sentence opened up a floodgate of griefs that I have been ignoring, afraid to name them for fear of being consumed by grief. The crazy thing is that the more I try not to name my griefs, the more they come out in anger and despair.

In my journal, I wrote: “My grief is . . . regret, dismay, denied, unrealistic, unnameable, transitional, disappointment based on sin, sorrow, sickness, separation and simple doubts about God’s goodness.” This simple act of confession brought to light what troubles me. I don’t have solutions, but expressing these on paper was the first step of reaching out to God for healing and comfort.

Writing to God: 40 Days of Praying With My Pen (Rachel G. Hackenberg)

I love the simplicity of this book. The prayers recorded in this book are poetic. They have inspired me to write poem prayers. Writing poetry takes my raging thoughts and distills them down into concise, raw expressions. When I read Rachel’s poem prayers and my own, I am drawn to some phrase that feeds my soul in the moment.

On the facing page of each prayer, she offers a prompt to read a Scripture and to contemplate a topic, which spurs me on to more written expressions of my heart.

In the poem, Nighttime Prayer, she explores her fear of the dark, which leads to her real fear–the fear of not being in control or able to stave off disaster that might come in the middle of the night. Early in the morning she laments, “Wide-eyed in case the uncontrollable, unthinkable happens/So I stay awake/Stay distracted/Determined not to be caught off guard by the night.”

Her prayer prompt for this entry explores fear: “Write a prayer about fear, and let the presence and encouragement of God surround you with holy comfort.”

Combining this reading with the quote from Love Letters about healing and grief, I noticed a connection between grief and fear.

I wrote: “My fear is . . . bound up in my grief. I fear failure, disappointing others, not keeping up, other people’s opinion of me, giving up on life, disappointing others’ expectations of me. I am afraid of depression, cancer, pain, failure, rejection, hope, renewal, new paths, success, criticism, praise, pride, the future, boredom, apathy, cynicism, nothingness, death, living, making mistakes. . .”

These confessions were random, yet real. Something about confessing these on paper enlarges my perspective.

My conclusion today was that I am powerless . . . and that’s a good thing to know and believe, because then I cry out, “I need you, Lord Jesus!”

And He comforts me.

Linking up with:

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Love Letters


But I trust in your unfailing love.
I will rejoice because you have rescued me.
I will sing to the LORD
because he has been so good to me.
(Psalm 13:5-6 NLT)


 
I thought writing love letters to God would be easy. The frustration occurs when I attempt to write lovely letters, rather than true expressions of my heart, like Lynn D. Morrissey encourages in Love Letters to God: Deeper Intimacy Through Written Prayer:

It is the gift of the whole heart that God most desires-a heart without pretense and posturing; a heart in all its honesty, beauty, passion and brokenness; a heart pulsing with love, joy, sadness, delight, doubt, pain, anguish, even anger. True love expresses all emotions, and true love-God’s true love for you-accepts them. 



I don’t know why, but I feel awkward with God lately.

Am I struggling with accepting His love for me, yet again?  

So, I start thinking about the word, beloved, again. If I break the word apart it says, be loved.

Be. Loved.

The Spirit whispers, “Let Me love you. Don’t shrink away. Don’t listen to the lies that you’re not measuring up.” I whisper back, “Okay.”

A Prayer of Response:

Beloved-
Here we are! Another day! Me curled up in my chair, with the cat next to me, pen in hand, ink on paper . . .I am listening. I am seeking. I pore over words looking for a phrase to move me toward and forward to Your heart, Your will, Your way . . . my heart is clogged with worldly angst. Desire for relief, comfort, even nothingness.

Yet You have all this existence surrounding me, begging me to exist, breathe, live and move within it. Sometimes I feel so alive, I could burst. Other times everything falls flat.

Help me to put aside my agenda for today. I just want to rest in Your presence. Imagine what it was like for you to become “word made flesh.” You understand my fears and insecurities. Grant peace. Immerse me in your love. Let me be soaked with your love, joy, hope, peace, purpose and grace upon grace.

Your beloved- Kel



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