Conversing with God

Yesterday I was going to post a typical type of conversation that I have with God.  However, God being the wonderful Father that He is, it took quite the ministering turn that was too personal to share.

The intent that I started out with was to let everyone know that when you are praying, it is way more than the prayer recipe given by Jesus that we have been taught in Matthew 6.  It is more than a prayer that we pray to an invisible God that we hope will hear the cries of our hearts and if He is willing, to answer them.

First off, when I talk to God I am more than likely sitting in a chair with my fresh cup of coffee.  I start talking to Him as if my best friend is sitting right in front of me as I know He is!  My secret place is not some closet, it is every room of the house that I happen to be alone with Him in.  

When you are up at 3:00 in the morning, pretty much every room is vacant except bedrooms.  I turn on worship music that has me singing from my spirit.  That too can change depending on what God is needing to set the atmosphere.  Sometimes it is absolutely quiet.

Sometimes I am studying the Bible or reading a book that brings me closer to Him.  As I am reading, I will stop and ask Him questions or even tell Him what I thought about what I just read.  We can have conversations that take up my entire reading time and sometimes He just gives me a one-word response and I keep going.  

Sometimes my early morning alone time with God has people and sometimes it doesn't.  When folks can't sleep or they have early mornings they are also up - I try not to let folks distract me however sometimes God needs me to stop and love on those that are needing my attention.  Folks in our lives are not an interruption to God and we shouldn’t feel that way either.

Sometimes we get a few hours before having to start the day and sometimes we only get a few minutes.  However, I will tell you that I do talk to Him whenever I find myself alone.  I am alone a lot so we talk a lot.

What I am trying to say is that my prayer, worship and study life is never the same.  Which I will be totally honest with you, used to irritate me beyond all reason.

I am a planner, I am a clock watcher and I am a calendar filler.  I would try to give God appointed times of the day.  I would set my daily calendar to give God this chunk of time for worship, another chunk for prayer and another chunk of time for study.  I tried this for years.  Can you imagine my frustration level when God wouldn't stick to my schedule or when life would get in the way of my God time?!?!?  

Sure, I can look back now and laugh at my thinking that I could get God to keep to the allotted time that I had set for Him.  

Another thing I did was type up prayer agendas - Okay God, here are my prayer points that we need to address...  I don't know how God felt about those lists, but they bored me to tears.  I hated talking about the same thing day after day.  No more laundry list prayers! 

One thing that I have truly learned in my walk with God is that I need to go with the flow.  I had to put aside my preconceived notions of what my time with God would look like and how it would work.  I quit trying to make Him only show up in my prayer room that I had set up as our meeting place.  I put away my calendar and quit setting appointment times with God.  

I quit trying to find out how God showed up for other people to see if God would show up for me that way.  I quit trying to make Him show up with the playlists that work for others or what I thought He needed.  

My rigid rules that I placed on God (and myself) were tossed out the window.

What I did was turn on music that my spirit needed.  I would sing, dance, stomp to the songs that I needed to express.  If I didn't know what I needed, I would just turn on YouTube and pick a playlist that called to me.  God knew what my spirit needed and if He needed to bring the music, He would.

What I am trying to say is that my prayer time is just about me and God spending time together.  It is different each day.  Some days it is more study of His Word, than prayer.  Some days it is more worship, than study.  Some days it is me creating and God speaking to me through my creativity.  Sometimes it is me cleaning the house.  It is never the same.  

Once I erased the lines of the box, I put God in, the more and more He showed up.  I also learned to ask questions.  I removed the filter that said I couldn't ask God, "Why or How Come?"  Sometimes His answers are vague and sometimes they are full of details.  

I literally have a conversation with God.  I ask questions and I wait for His response.  If all I hear is crickets, I ask another question as it may not be the best time for me to hear that response.  Sometimes He answers my questions with a question.  He knows how much I hate that!  (laughing)

My point is that my prayers are me talking and conversing with God as if He were in the room with me, as He is!  I don't have to wait for Him to show up as I know He is already there.  

I know that when I open my eyes in the morning, He is leaning over the bed looking at me, waiting for my eyes to focus on Him.  He is so excited for me to wake up to spend time with me.  He doesn't care how we spend our time, He just wants to spend time with me and that is what relationship is about.  Relationship is just spending time together, getting to know one another.

I pray that your time with God becomes your own.  Do what you enjoy as God will enjoy doing that with you also.  

Until Next Time, God Bless!

Slow Down, Be in the Present, and Enjoy the Process

We live in a fast-paced society, so fast that we have more things to do in less time to do them.  Maybe not all of us but I sure feel that way.  There are days that I am so overwhelmed that I have to be told to breathe.  How does that happen?  How does one forget to breathe?!? 

I know as we get older time seems to be going faster than we care to admit.  Personally, this last year has been a blur.  I have been overfilling my calendar so much so that there were days that I was not only double booked, I was triple booked…ouch! 

I am an overachieving perfectionist that has (more than) a lot that I want to accomplish in my life.  I don’t want to live to be forgotten.  I want to leave a legacy to my children and grandchildren.  I want to be known for more than being a nice lady.  

However, when you are just going and going like the Energizer Bunny life will catch up to you and when it does you are going to find out exactly how much time you have wasted trying to do everything all at once.  Not to mention while you are trying to do it all, there is the “Life Happens” that is taking place around you. 

We have family and friends that have died.  We have family that my heart longs to see but are scattered about the country that require time and money to go see…I get panic stricken with just the thought on choosing whom I should go see…first.  UGH, the pressure of picking one family member over another! <breathe>    

There is stress at work, there is stress at home, there is stress in general everyday life and I just kept adding things to add more stress.    

You know what happens when you don’t have proper self-care?  You get depression and anxiety mixed together with an unhealthy dose of sadness.  That has been my life for longer than I care to think about.  As a child of God, I took my concerns to Papa God.

It has been a slow process however He has been ministering to me.  (*Why do we freak out when He doesn’t answer our prayers overnight?  It took a good long time to get where we are, it is going to take time to get back to where we need to be. We need to let Him minister to us at the pace that WE need Him to.  Our wounds need time to heal.  Amen?  Amen!)

This season God wants me to focus on the good…He said that those that have passed are with Him, they are happy and whole.  He wants me to be happy for them and quit focusing on my sadness that they aren’t with me anymore. 

I am not to focus on those loved ones I don’t get to see, I am to give those I am seeing all my love and attention.  Be in the moment with them and enjoy our time together.  Look them in the eyes when they are talking to me.  I am not to worry about what I am not getting done, but really give that person my full attention.  When we love people, we value them and their time! 

He has also shown me is that I need to start creating again.  When a creative doesn’t create they get depressed.  I have been doing as much as I can on my time off that I have been hurrying to get “this” done so I can work on “that” to get it done, and then to get the “other” completed…endless hamster wheel of self induced stress.

My body has been taking the brunt of all this stress.  On Sundays after church and the family meal, I crash.  I am a lump on some piece of furniture wondering if it is bedtime yet.  Just to jump back on the wheel getting it going again the following morning that starts the week. 

When I am on the proverbial hamster wheel I feel like I am just going through the motions.  I am not enjoying anything that I am doing, just working on them as fast as I can to get them completed so that I can work on the next thing.  Even doing something that I normally enjoy doing, I am just doing it to get it done and off the to-do list, it becomes a chore.  There is no joy when you work (or create) like that.

I asked God what does my next season look like?  The answer I got was to…slow down, live in the present and enjoy the process.  Get off the hamster wheel and live intentionally! 

I call myself a fabric artist and I haven’t given myself time to create art with fabric.  Even if I am not working on an art piece I have a ton of UFO (Un-Finished Objects) Quilts that are screaming to be completed…imagine what all I could complete if I actually gave myself permission to intentionally work on them?  The thought of actually enjoying the process of creating something beautiful with fabric has the excitement bubbling up in me. 

To help me start me off on the road to new habits and start my creative selfcare, I am going to set aside 30 minutes each day to create.  Not just create, but really tune into what I am doing.  Not thinking about what I need to check off my to do list or what chore is waiting for me but, totally focus on what I am working on.  This could be any activity that gives you joy. 

This morning I am writing this article.  I am noticing my breathing and heartbeat… I am paying attention to my fingers hitting the keyboard...clickity click click click.  I am listening to the worship music that is softly playing…and I also hear the quiet of morning that sets it apart from the evening. I feel the soft breeze coming through the open window.  I smell my coffee and the diffusor oil that is wafting through the air.  I am watching the words slowly manifest across the document.  I notice there is a rhythm of the morning that is filled with comfort and peace. 

I am not stressing about finishing the article by an imaginary deadline that I have put on myself.  I am enjoying the process of letting the thoughts flow onto the page.  There is a timer set so that I don’t get lost in my creative time as I still have to go about my normal day. 

I am making sure that as a creative I am getting my creative time in.  Shaking off the depression, not letting anxiety rise up.  Sadness has no place when the choice is joy.

Imagine if you will, if we took the time to enjoy everything that we do.  We wouldn’t have to stop and remember to lower our bucket down in our joy well as we would constantly be drinking it in…

Until next time, God Bless!

Waking Up

As I woke up this morning my heart ached as I realized that today is not only Resurrection Sunday but it also April Fool's Day.  Even 37 years later I still hurt as I did when I was 16 years old.  April 1st, 1981 my mama was taken to the hospital in a coma to die 10 days later on Resurrection Sunday.  

Both days have always been hard for me.  How ironic that they are both sharing the same day on the calendar this year.  

I didn't wait to get out of bed before I asked God what it was like when she opened her eyes and saw Heaven.  Before He could show me anything, I asked Him what it was like for Jesus waking up from being crucified.  Next thing you know I am asking question after question like a toddler who is seeking to learn new things.  When I get excited I not only talk a lot but I also speak really fast.

What I saw was my Father smiling at me waiting for me to take a breath.  That sight warmed my heart.  He looked at me with such patience and so lovingly that I shut up, soaking that in. 

As a parent I know that even though my children are adults, they are still my babies.  I love them like no other.  It is hard for me not to still see them as 2, 3, and 5 years old.  

I like to think that is the same way with Papa God over me.  He doesn't see the 52 year old lady, He sees His little girl who needs His love, patience and all the guidance that she can get.

Life has been hard lately.  We have had a lot of deaths in our circle of family and friends in the last couple years that I have felt my joy slip further and further away.  I am so tired of my heart being bruised and broken...<breathe>  I found myself speaking the words, "Daddy here is my broken heart, fix it please."

Next thing I knew I was opening my eyes and I saw His face close up to mine.  I felt like I was a newborn baby opening their eyes for the first time and having their parents looking at them with such fullness of joy.

I flashed on the moment of Creation when God breathed life into Adam.  When He opened His eyes and seeing the face of the Father and said, "Abba."  

Peace engulfed me as I saw my mama opening her eyes and seeing the face of the Father.  How awesome is that thought?!?!

You close your eyes on earth and open them in Heaven with the Father looking back filled with such emotions that He is overwhelmed by the love He feels for you.  He doesn't even have to tell you that He loves you as you can see it as plain as if He spoke the words.  His heart is full of joy because you are His child.  You didn't even have to do anything to earn His love, He just loves you.

Then I heard in my spirit, "Child, every time you open your eyes I am right here waiting for your eyes to focus on Me. I am here, I never leave.  Open your eyes, I am here."

After my warm fuzzy moment with Papa, it dawned on me why I love mornings. I get to wake up to Him.  I get to climb up in His lap telling Him, "Good morning daddy, where are we going today, who are we going to love on today, who are we going to bless, how, what, when..."  

I don't have to wait for Heaven, I get to wake up to the Father's face every morning.  His love surrounds me as I go about life.  Waking up just got even more exciting for me!

I pray that you enjoy waking up to His face too, knowing that He loves you like no other.

Until Next Time, God Bless!