Wednesday, August 29, 2012

Trying to let the Healer do His work.

Slow, promised healing
©8-29-12 Hannah McLean

The wounds are still fresh
I know it when the slightest
confrontation of the loss of him
brushes against my heart
and my walls come up
in an awkward, hurried fashion
that leave me feeling
as though I am in a hardened glaze
unable to receive or give

What am I to do
when the wounds are still raw
and uninvited pressure inflames
the pain and bypasses what numbed
as i grimace my way
through the jarring bumps
ignorantly surprised by how easily
I bruise
or maybe by how deep the bruises truly are

The wounds are still fresh
borne through the flesh
and penetrating into the depth
of my heart and soul
healing is slow, but promised

And as I wait expectantly
while walking through each day’s unknowns
I will carefully take down my
awkward, hurried walls
that when I reach the
moments when the wounds have healed
I will be soft and whole
not cemented beneath a hardened glaze
of faulty security

Tuesday, August 28, 2012

When the giving and the taking collide.

Psalm 139 has been of significant importance to me lately. It’s grace when the Lord solidifies verses in your mind that you will need for what is to come. For me, this psalm has been a very rooting place in scripture for me over the last two months. Even as I write this, I marvel that maybe it has been a bit longer than two months as it is actually the very first Psalm that I chose to memorize after I gave my life to the Lord (I grew up memorizing scripture because I had to, to choose to was something different all together). Over the years, different portions of it have held me up, as it is filled with comforting truths of God’s presence with, care for, and complete knowledge of me.

The past few weeks, I have held onto the comfort provided in two verses as I have found myself in the center of a strange collision of the Lord who gives and who takes away.

My brother Noah died on August 4 at the age of 22-years-old. As I have faced the quandaries in the air around me of, “He was taken too soon,” or “What if he had stayed an extra minute longer before he left for work?” or “Why did she hit him?” Through my mind goes the truth I see in verse 16, “All the days ordained for me were written in Your book before one of them came to be.” God is the One who created Noah, He is the one who planned his life and numbered his days before he even existed. I find it comforting to know that God had a purpose and a plan for Noah’s short life and that it was fulfilled, and Noah now gets to be with Him forever. For some reason, knowing that allows me to freely set aside the questions and the “what-ifs” and to submit myself to the Father’s will with peace.

Then there is verse 13, “...You knit me together in my mother’s womb.” I heard the news of Noah’s death at 2:21am on August 5. It wasn’t until later in the day that it began to sink in; I’m 10 weeks pregnant, what will this grief do to my developing child? The first trimester of a pregnancy is critical to a fetus, all of its organs and systems are forming; it’s a time that calls for intentional care, much rest, much water, a healthy diet, exercise...if you’ve ever experienced death before, you can see why I fell into my natural response to fear. Grief makes you sort of forget about all that; sleep doesn’t come easily, food seems unimportant, water is not on the mind, time stands still as the day-to-day goings on grow dim in the light of what you have lost. Not only does basic physical care and concern tend to fall to the wayside, but the crushing burden of grief takes its own physical and emotional toll that leaves you drained of strength to the point of exhaustion. But I know this verse is true; it is God who is creating this baby inside me, not me; it is God who can protect this developing child from the negative affects of sorrow, not me; and it has always been God who can carry my fears, not me. I am grateful for praying friends who let me set my burdensome fear for my 10-week-old unborn child onto their backs and willingly carried it for me as I grieved for my Noah and stumbled my way through the crushing blows of the week and a half that followed.

Friends, my fear was lifted by your strength and prayers, and it has not returned; I cannot thank you enough for carrying it for me to our Father when I was far too fragile to lift the added burden of its weight. May He overflow you with blessing for your care of me and the strength you have lent me.

So I continue to stand on Psalm 139 with confidence and cling to the comfort that has poured out of the verses onto my weathered soul. I believe with my whole heart in a good, faithful and sovereign God; a present and thoughtful Creator with a wisdom that far outweighs my own. While this time has been a strange juxtaposition of life and death, I am certain it has made my praises all the fuller as I bless the One who gives and who takes away.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

"The truth is, we may never hear, 'I'm sorry.'"

The power of unspoken words
©8-25-12 Hannah McLean

There’s much talk of
the power of words,
be they soothing balm on piercing pain
or a tearing whip on a raw heart.
There is no doubt
that words hold the power
to release both life and death.

But what of
the power of words
that are left unspoken?
Of silence when a voice should be heard?
Or a piercing word that receives no reprimand?
Or a timely question left unanswered?
What of
the power of the words
we never hear?

There is no doubt
that words hold power,
but I think the ones that are never spoken

have a power all of their own.

Wednesday, August 22, 2012

"I have to bury my brother today."

I woke up in the morning
on the day we were to bury you
and realized I had nothing to wear
to your funeral.
So my morning started off with a teary
trip to the store
which is the least fun kind of shopping
a girl can do.
I numbly walked past racks and wondered,
“I have to bury my brother today...
how am I suppose to dress for that?”
But God has mercy on the grieving
and the first dress I tried on
I bought.

We drove to the funeral home--
my husband, my baby and me.
It was one of those trips that was filled
with those deep guttural sobs that catch in your throat
and leave you gasping for a breath.
It was a quiet trip,
punctured only by a grief that my body wouldn’t let escape
for fear of its affects.

We found ourselves greeted by a line of patriot guards;
they wrapped around the building
and guarded every door
like a leather-wearing, tattoo-bearing, flag-waving army of angels.
It was a moving sight.
I walked to the door alone,
but stopped short of entering
“I don’t want to go in.
That’s my brother in there.
I don’t want to go in.”
One of the guards hugged me
until I had mustered up the necessary courage.

I walked inside and up the stairs
feeling lost and fragile,
I imagine I looked as I felt;
like the slightest bump would have shattered me.
I didn’t really know how to greet people,
and was grateful when the service started.

We sang,
we cried,
we “alright”-ed,
we spoke,
we listened,
we said, “goodbye,”
we carried your coffin,
we survived.

Then we lined up in a processional
to escort you to the cemetery;
it was reminiscent of the tarmac caravan,
only much, much longer.

At the cemetery,
we found your fellow Airmen,
faithfully lined up,
standing tall in their dress blues to honor you.
We stopped our car and walked to
the freshly dug grave that was for you.
It was a large open hole,
the dirt to fill it with was piled atop
your brothers graves,
waiting.

The scene that we found was a bit unorganized,
but it all came together in typical Noah fashion.
Looking over the day,
the wrinkles that needed to be ironed out
were far better and full of purpose
than we could have planned.

When the vault was in the ground,
we sat in a line of chairs
alongside your coffin.
The honor guard carefully folded the flag
that was draped over you,
heart-wrenching fold
by heart-wrenching fold
until it was meticulously handed to a man
to present to our mama.

How do you hand a mother the flag
that laid atop her son’s casket?
What words do you say to bring her comfort
as you share in the moments of her grievous loss?
“On behalf of the president of the United States of America...”
Our mama’s hands accepted your flag,
even as they seemed to long to comfort
the one who placed it in them.

There was another flag for our papa.
What do you say to the man
whose son lay in the coffin on your left?
What words do you say to offer strength
to the father who had lost three and yet who "never had any extra kids?”
“On behalf of the president of the United States of America...”
Our papa’s hands accepted your flag,
even as they extended strength to
the one who placed it in them.

The honor guard behind us
stood ready with their rifles raised
in a three-volley salute.
>Bang<
My heart cringed
>Bang<
and my tears fell.
>Bang<
Then the woeful sound of a bugle
began to glide atop the air;
the peaceful proclamation of Taps
“Day is done, gone the sun
from the lakes, from the hills, from the sky...
as we go, this we know
God is nigh.”
After the scripture was read over your coffin,
your brothers-in-arms stepped forward
and took the honored task of lifting you up
to courageously carry you across unstable boards
and crumbing ground
to lower you into your grave.
It was no small thing they did for us,
I am certain none of them had placed a man
into a grave before
and I am certain none of them wish for the opportunity
to do it again.
One of them graciously left his hat with you.

And then the time was upon us
that our mama had told me would be as painful as
the labor it took to bring you into this world;
as we began to sing
“Now the moment has come when we must say farewell...”
one-by-one your siblings stood
and moved as those who’d taken on such a task
too many times before,
to pick up the shovels
that leaned against the linden tree
that sways majestically over our brothers’ graves.

The sound of the shovels
digging into the pile of dirt
joined the melodic voices,
and the harsh sounds of the dirt falling onto
the cement vault
hammered in the reality:
We were burying our brother today.

My shoes filled with dirt
as I carried the shovels full,
so I took them off.
As I stood in the dress I had bought that morning,
with my bare feet in the grass and dirt
beside your grave,
I offered you what was left of my strength, Noah,
and did my part to cover you.

Eventually the sorrow overflowed
and I fell into the nearby arms
of our sister
who absorbed my sobbing soul
with her own.

Others joined our efforts
as we buried you,
they offered their strength
where ours was stretched too thin.
And when the dirt had all been placed into
the freshly dug grave,

when the last note of the hymn faded,
when we had brushed the dirt from your brother's foot stones,
there was nothing left for us to do,

but turn around

and walk away.

“I have to bury my brother today.”
May those words never fall
from our lips again.

Though we cannot see you anymore beside us,
Noah David Muonio,
we will always see you fondly
in our minds-eye.

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The coffin on the tarmac.

I sit down with my fingers poised above the keys
and wait for words to come.
But my mind swirls in circles
and I wonder,
how do I write about this moment...
this moment when the idea became the reality.

Wednesday, August 8, 2012, 7:29pm:
when the answer was presented in a
flag wrapped coffin on the tarmac.

We knew the plan for the day;
three cars could meet the Air Force Honor Guard at the airport
and caravan to the tarmac
to meet Noah’s body upon arrival...
a simple, straightforward plan.

So carefully following orders
we pulled into the airport fire station
at 6:30pm.
None of us was prepared for the silver hearse we saw
parked silently beside the Honor Guard’s van.
We passed out kleenex as we lined up
and waited for further instruction.
“Follow close,” they said
and we were off.
We carted across the stark runway that backed up to a beautiful sky,
one that had occasionally showered us with tears
as we had waited,
but that now lay open and lovely as it wrapped around us.
We eased our tense and dreaded anticipation
by amusing ourselves with the colors of our caravan:
silver car, silver hearse, silver van, light gold van, maroon van, blaze orange suburban...
Muonio style.
We went through a tunnel
and wound past luggage carriers
until we came to a stop beside
an open space where Noah’s plane
would park.
We got out and stood together beside our cars,
waiting hand-in-hand.

We saw the plane approaching,
it carefully pulled into its place
and was still.
I am sure there were noises around us,
but once they opened the small door at the bottom of the plane,
I didn’t hear them anymore.
We stood together,
silently,
with our breath caught inside our chests,
hands grasping the ones beside us tightly,
and our eyes locked on the little opening.
Floating on the air
sat the question we knew needed to be answered
but which we longed was just a terrible mistake:

“Is this really real?”

What would we do when the doubt met truth?
What would we feel when reality was revealed to us?
Would we stand or would we fall?
Could we bear the weight of what we were about to see?

And so we stood
together in our dread
without a word
or a breath among us.

Then it happened;
a man appeared,
and following him came the front of a flag-draped coffin
And the silence was broken
as a collective wail of pain rose
in a crescendoed chorus from our lips;
it cracked the air where the question rested
and shattered it,
even as our hearts fell to pieces.

Foot-by-foot we watched the coffin slide across the narrow opening
until we had seen the white stars, the blue,
and the length of the red stripes had disappeared on the other side.
It came back into view as they turned it
and carefully set it onto a belt
that slowly began to move,
presenting our new reality to us in full
as Noah’s body completed its journey from Ohio to Minnesota.

There it sat before us,
what had gone out standing
had returned in a flag-draped coffin that rested in a shallow wooden box.
My father and my brother stood in full salute
as the Honor Guard marched forward
for the noble task of carrying our Noah’s coffin
to the waiting hearse.
They faithfully did their duty,
in spite of the wooden box that fought back.
Sway by sway
the flag moved across the tarmac
and disappeared into the silver hearse.
The raised arm of my brother fell
as he crumbled in a heap
where we knelt with him,
partners in the heavy sorrow
he could not stand beneath.

We wept together,
as we had so many times already,
with a common understanding of
a deeper pain
and the even greater tasks that awaited us.
And as they called us to return to our cars,
we lifted each other up
and carried each other to the cars that would take us away.
Then the caravan of silver, gold, maroon and blaze orange
retraced the path we had come in on
until we had reentered the real world
that would never be the same.

And from our lips
fell yet again the words we’d marveled over
every time they were spoken:
“We survived that.”

fragments

the limits of a broken heart
©8-21-12 hannah mclean
my sentences are broken.
fragmented clusters of words
are all the heart can produce.
unable to put together 
an eloquent thought,
i write anyway
and let the shards fall where they may.

Monday, August 20, 2012

The heavy coffin that was ours to carry.

I woke up this morning thinking about
carrying your coffin.
There was a finality to the moment
we watched our parents close it.
My final words to you
had come out in a slightly panicked cry,
“Goodbye, my Noah Boa. Goodbye, my Noah Boa,”
as I clumsily brushed my hands across your chest
and kissed the top of your head one last time.

Your coffin was so heavy, Noah.
I don’t think it was because
it was made out of an element resistant
stainless steel
or that you were a full grown man.
I think it was because
my arms were ill-prepared
to carry it
and my muscles,
atrophied by sorrow,
had trouble lifting even myself.
As soon as I set my hands
on the metal bars,
lined up beside our brothers and sisters,
my heart crumbled.
Sobs burst out from the depth of me
as we lifted you,
pulsating through my body with each painful step.
We carried you to the hearse
which sat open before us
ready to bring your body to your final resting place.
Weeping,
our family’s cries accompanied you.
Together we bore the weight,
knowing we should never
have had to carry another coffin,
knowing we could never
have carried it alone.

Sunday, August 19, 2012

Noah, the man.

One of the things that struck me the most was on day 5 of our Noah week, the day I looked into his coffin for the first time. My very first thought was, “He looks like a man.” I don’t know what I expected to see; maybe the big sister part of me expected the first response to be a lament over the face of the littleness of a boy I had cared for from birth (that came at other times), but instead, I felt a surge of pride as a big sister looked into her little brother’s face and knew that he had truly become a man.

When I mentioned that Noah looked like a man to my aunt, she said, “Is that a new thing?” Yes. It was a new thing. Joining the Air Force did that to Noah.

My favorite part about our day in Ohio (the Air Force flew our whole family out for a memorial service for him) was visiting the place where he worked. I know they went to great lengths to allow us the privilege of seeing what he did day-to-day and meeting the men and women he worked with, and I am so grateful they made that happen for us. He was involved in important work, work that not only impacted the people and place where he sat at his desk, but the United States as a whole. He worked with brilliant people and fit right in. He not only did what was required of him, but brought insight and information that was above and beyond, and stood out as a man of great potential who was (and would continue to grow in) having a huge impact.

As we talked to people he worked with, I was filled with gratitude that they saw him; Noah was always someone who was content with being invisible, and even in his place as tallest peak in the Muonio family mountain range, he would shrink back from drawing attention to himself (unless there was a statue nearby, in which case he would unhesitatingly pose with it). But at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Noah didn’t hide. He stood with confidence and did his work to the best of his ability...and his abilities were great. He rose to the challenges placed before him, and as one who always sought to do his best, he was recognized, his giftings were nurtured and, as a result, he became the man he was made to be.

You know, I had always referred to Noah as my unlit firecracker, full of potential and waiting for the right spark to set him ablaze. It brought me much joy to know that while I never had the pleasure of seeing it, my firecracker’s wick was burning when he went to his grave.

Thursday, August 16, 2012

The cross on the side of Ohio State Route 444

Dearest Noah,
Nathan made a cross for us to put in the place where you died.
 
I carried it for you...
from my house and through the airport
onto the plane and to Ohio
to the hotel and finally
to the place where you died.
It was an honor to carry your cross.
I wrote your name on it.
I wanted people to know
that it wasn’t just a bicyclist
who died there on Ohio State Route 444...
it was you:
Our brother, our son, our uncle, our friend
It was Noah David Muonio,
an incredible human being who we are deeply grieving the loss of.

I saw the place where you died, Noah.
I cried.
I saw the mark your tire made on the side of the road
I saw the place where you body landed
some 20 feet further.
I saw the position of your feet, carefully marked
with orange spray paint;
"RF"
"LF"
I saw the grass, discolored and matted down
where your body lay
alone on the side of the road,
the place where you took your last breath
and where,
in a piercing moment
we lost you.

It was healing to lay our hands
where your heart had been.
Every single one of us
longed to have been there
beside you
to hold your hand.
We reminded ourselves that
you were not alone.
You did not die alone
even though you died without us.

We love you.

We pounded in the cross
I carried for you
from my house and through the airport
onto the plane and to Ohio
to the hotel and finally
to the place where you died.
Your brothers faithfully
pounded it into the ground with a stone
that God had left there for us.
It is a small memorial
a simple, unpolished
cross of rough wood
written on with a sharpie...
you deserve much more.
But raw and present is what we could give you
and I know our efforts
would have pleased you.

We stood
and knelt
and held each other there.
We prayed, Noah
maybe you got to listen with the Lord
in heaven.
We gave the Lord our sorrow,
we asked Him to heal our broken hearts
and bind our wounds
because He is the healer.
We wept as we prayed blessing over the woman 
whose car took your life,
we asked Him for the greatest blessing
we could...
salvation and an eternity with Him
because “God SO loved the world
that He gave His only Son
and whoever believes in Him
will not perish
but have eternal life.
We prayed over the breadth of our emotions
and all that was to come.
We prayed that God would help
us make the daily choice to say,
“Blessed be the Lord,
Who gives and
Who takes away.”

And then we sang a song
for you
“It’s one of those times when I really miss you...”
Our voices stumbled
through sliding octaves and warbling notes
but still we sang
because you loved to sing
and so do we.

When it was determined that
“In this earthly realm, some of us need to pee,”
We left our tears and blood
on the side of the road
and climbed back into
our caravan of government vans
and left behind
the orange paint,
the wooden cross,
the mark of your body,
and the details we will never know.

While it is true that
for now,
we have lost you
it is for forever that,
we will love you, Noah David Muonio.

Sunday, August 12, 2012

A choice to bless.

I woke up this morning after a good night’s sleep. I hadn’t had one of those at all last week. I felt strange when I woke up, like I didn’t know what it was suppose to be like to be alive anymore. I listened to two songs as I sat very still on the couch; one of them had been posted on a friend’s facebook page, and the other my sister had read the lyrics to at my brother Noah's funeral yesterday. And then I went to church.

God knew I was coming. As I sat through several songs of worship, my heart was weighted down by loss, and then the songs I had sung this morning started flowing from the worship leaders mouths...and then all around me others joined in until I sat amid God's people who had joined in the songs on my heart.
First they sang "Blessed Be Your Name":
“Blessed be Your name
On the road marked with suffering
Though there's pain in the offering
Blessed be Your name
Every blessing You pour out
I'll turn back to praise
When the darkness closes in, Lord
STILL I will say
Blessed be the name of the Lord
You give and take away
My heart will choose to say
Lord, blessed be Your name”


It is important that you do not overlook the word “choose” in this song. For some reason, it seems of profound importance that I have made the choice to say in this time of remarkable loss and sorrow, “Blessed by Your name, Lord.” He is not forcing me to praise Him in my pain, or exalt Him in my weeping; I have chosen to praise Him in the giving and in the taking away because I believe Him to be deserving of all worship, no matter the circumstances. So today as the Lord offered to me this song, I laid at His feet an offering of praise and blessing as I looked down the road before me, fully aware of my wounded heart and soul.

And then they sang "10,000 Blessings":
“The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass, and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes
Bless the Lord, O my soul
O my soul, Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name”


I think of the psalmists who speak instruction to themselves in their places of darkness, who ask themselves blunt questions like, “Why are you downcast, o my soul?! And WHY are you disquieted within me?” and give themselves blunt answers to their doubt, fear, pain or displeasure (ie “HOPE IN GOD!”). I might have no idea what life should look like, and I may stand or sit at times as though I am completely lost, but for now I will simply give my soul instructions as to what is right: "Soul," I say, “Bless the Lord. Worship His name. Sing as you have never been able to sing before.”

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Thoughts of a grieving woman:

I lost my little brother, Noah David Muonio (aka Noah Boa).
I am grateful that he let me call him my Noah Boa...I think potty training someone gives you the privilege of calling them whatever you like, right? Maybe he agreed. :)
I miss him.
I love him.
He was so kind, so very kind. He was gentle and unassuming and a selfless servant. His quiet manner and pleasant presence had behind it a bundle of potential that I was so excited to see unveiled.
I used to call him a firecracker that was not yet lit...but that, when the right fire touched the wick, would light up this world and take away the breath of those of us who had the privilege of watching his life unfold.
But I don’t get to see this.
He’s gone.
Planning your brother’s funeral is a strange thing.
The grieving process in general is strange. We have traditions for death and grief. I didn’t realize that was unusual until my sister-in-law Jess said to me, “I hate that you guys have traditions for funerals...I can understand weddings or graduations, but no one should have to have traditions for deaths.”
We really have lost a lot. As a family we are seasoned grievers together.
Every once in a while I look at us and think, “And then there were 9.” How did we get down to the single digits? We’ve always been the family with the dozen kids.
As a family, I feel like God has really taught us how to hold His blessings in loose hands. He gives and takes away and blessed be His name. I am grateful that we got to have Noah for the short time that he was here. He is our brother, a part of our family...we got to have him. He was our gift. Lucky us. :)
I’m dreading Wednesday.
Wednesday we are going to meet his body at the airport. An honor guard from the Air Force will be accompanying him. Wednesday we are going to be confronted with Noah’s death head on. We are going to look into a coffin and see his lifeless body; and every strand of “this isn’t real” is going to be torn down and we are going to know that this is real and undeniable. And I don’t know how I will be able to stand.
But more than my own confrontation, I am going to look upon my family confronting this reality. I am going to have to watch their hearts break in front of me all over again, I am going to have to hear and see them weep. And I can’t do anything about it; I can’t take away their pain or carry their grief; I can’t mend their broken hearts or lift up their crushed spirits...all I will be able to do is hug them and weep with them and love them and our tears are just going to flood the place.
I’m dreading Wednesday.
But will that be harder than Saturday?
Saturday I am going to bury my brother. We are going to honor him at his funeral and carry him to his grave. Then we are going to bury him and walk away from a pile of dirt.
And I won’t get to see him again this side of eternity.
And I miss him.

Friday, August 3, 2012

Pondering the joy of a Prayer.

I love to pray. I have discovered that while it is not uncommon to meet people who pray, it is a rare pleasure to encounter another who truly loves to pray; whose heart rejoices at the idea and delights in the privilege of speaking with the Lord. I once had someone say to me, “I wonder what the rest of us are missing?” And I thought I would attempt to write a little bit about what prayer has looked like in my life...not that I know the answer to the question, but maybe I could give a glimpse into my oddity.

Growing up, I remember two things about prayer being emphasized:
1) The Lord’s prayer was sufficient and it was prideful to think I needed to pray anything above or beyond those words, and
2) Matthew 6:6 was taught repeatedly when the topic of prayer arose, “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.” In other words, you talk to God alone and quietly.
Don’t get me wrong, I was told TO pray. But my experience with prayer growing up was limited to the prewritten prayers in the back of our hymnal that were read every Sunday.

The main reason I left my childhood church was because I knew there was more than what I was being taught (not just surrounding prayer). I found that as I sought the Lord alone, reading my Bible and seeking His face, I was overwhelmed with a joy and hunger that left me thinking, “What am I doing wrong? A Christian walk is a sobering and serious thing, what is this joy and life I feel?” But I knew it was real, I wasn’t the one creating it in me; and when I met a person whose eyes and life resonated with the joy and hope I felt, my heart leapt that the Lord had opened the door into the “more” I knew existed...and I ran through it.

My first encounter with prayer when I entered into this new and exciting chapter of my walk with the Lord came when I joined a small group of women for a bible study. On my very first visit, they went around the circle and asked for prayer requests. This surprised me, and I remember marveling that these women who didn’t even know me wanted to pray for me. And then God sort of just tossed me into the deep end; the women split up in pairs to pray together. I had never prayed out loud before and I had never prayed WITH anyone before...and yet, I didn’t run away. The Spirit tugged at my heart and I knew that while I didn’t know HOW to pray, I just wanted to do it. I wanted to be a part of this marvelous thing called prayer, and so with both feet, I leapt into the waters of prayer and never looked back.

I see the invitation to pray as possibly the sweetest extension of love in the bible (second only to salvation in Christ). God Himself, perfect and holy and mighty and majestic, has asked us to sit with Him and commune with Him; He has extended His ear and the pleasure of being heard by the Creator God; He has invited us to approach Him with boldness and in an unceasing fashion...how can we resist such a marvelous hand reaching out to us?

To me, prayer is as close to the relationship between God and man as we see in the Garden of Eden that we can experience this side of eternity; where God and man walked and talked side-by-side, and where humanity was “naked and unashamed” in the presence of the Lord. Let me try to explain this: To me there is great freedom in prayer. Psalm 139 states just how thoroughly God knows me as it speaks of God knowing all of my days before i even existed, how He knit me together in my mother’s womb, how He is with me no matter where I go, how He knows my thoughts and words even before I speak. To me this reality of being so fully known brings about great freedom in my prayer life. It was only after the fall into sin that man and woman hid themselves...we were not made to be hidden from the eyes of the Lord; and for me, prayer is me simply walking and talking with God...raw and unhidden and utterly free. He knows everything about me--my failures, my triumphs, the deepest longings of my heart--and He wants to be with me anyway. For a girl who grew up feeling as though I was always on the outside of relationships looking in, this knowledge that God has invited me into a relationship with Him--not out of convenience, pity or obligation, but out of love and desire for me--is almost too overwhelmingly sweet. I get to be with Him...and in prayer, I get to talk with Him and hear from Him.

Earlier this year i had the urge to write down a few of my favorite verses on prayer; verses that fuel, encourage and uplift my spirit right into the throne room of God. I shared a few with my life group and they probably thought I was a little loopy as I giggled my way through the loveliness of God’s invitation and promises. But the appearance of loopiness is not enough to stop me from sharing several of these life-changing verses with you:

Lamentations 2:19: “Pour out your heart like water before the presence of the Lord”
Unfiltered, raw, real...God knows the reality of my heart (with it doubts, fears or faith); and brother and sisters, I truly believe that it is honoring to God to trust Him with our mess. Poured out in His presence, could there be a sweeter way to live?

Hebrews 4:16: “Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
What I love about this verse is the boldness that should accompany our need. I often hear people talk about “God helping those who help themselves” (which totally removes God from the picture, by the way) and think of this verse. No, God knows our every need and tells us to boldly approach His throne and find in Him all we need to help us. Boldly seeking grace and mercy. Yes, let us, a desperately needy people, boldly seek grace and mercy at the foot of His throne.

Daniel 9:18: “O my God, incline your ear and hear. Open your eyes and see our desolations, and the city that is called by your name. For we do not present our pleas before you because of our righteousness, but because of your great mercy.”
The book of Daniel bowls me over, it will teach you so much about a correctly positioned prayer and what true confidence in the character of God looks like. It is totally worth your time if ever you will stop to wring it out. These words melt me as Daniel pleads with God for vividly undeserved mercy for a rebellious people, not one ounce of his prayer banks of the merit of man but instead on the great measure of the mercy of God and the faithfulness of His character. You must read Daniel’s prayer in chapter 9. Knowing the character of God makes all the difference in a prayer life, the Bible is where God tells you who He is, what He is like and His promises to you. I cannot tell you enough how utterly important it is to read and know the revealed word of God.

1 Samuel 12:23a: “Moreover, as for me, far be it from me that I should sin against the LORD by ceasing to pray for you.”
God wants me to pray for others, and He desires it to such an extent that it is as sin to me to neglect such a call. Prayer is a way to intentionally seek the good of another, and the fact that God calls us to bring others before His throne should bring us to our knees to lift them up.

Jeremiah 33:3: “Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.”
Oh, such lovely words. He will answer my call and He will show me great and wonderful things; sometimes He directs me through His word or reveals His truths in visions or comforts my heart through a song or speaks a word into my heart or lays out His purposes through my pen...But whatever way He chooses to reveal Himself, He never fails to share with me depths of the greatness and the wonder of Him that I have not known. Prayer brings about revelation of the heart of God that we would be hard-pressed to discover any other way. I desperately desire to know His heart, and so, I pray.

There are more verses, if you want to hear them, ask. I realize that words and time are far too limited to adequately describe my thoughts on prayer, but if this would encourage your voice to be heard in heaven or your ears to open to the voice of God, I am grateful to have taken the opportunity to share even this small amount.

The bottom line is this: God has extended to you and to me an invitation to enter His presence, to be heard by Him and to hear from Him...and there is deep joy (and yes, deep sorrow...my forehead wrinkles are actually prayer lines) that awaits you in stepping into His Almighty presence and resting at His feet.