On the importance of prayer

Dear God, Abba, I have been thinking of you. I have been thankful for you, but not talking to you. Why does this happen so often inside my heart with you? I know you are there, I see you all around in the gift of rain, the smile of our son, and yet, I hesitate to talk to you. Why? Am I afraid, afraid of your presence, your answers maybe, your silence perhaps. Thinking of you as further away is maybe less painful than talking to you and waiting for your reply. But I feel like I talk to you, or rather write notes about you, but hesitate to come to you. I do hesitate to meet you. I also hesitate to set things at your feet. This I know to be true. To think about you, and think about things in my mind and heart and dreams feels safer than to come to you and set these things before you, again fearing silence. Fearing the passage of time before clarity arrives. Fearing, unknown direction. I like to think rather than do, and this is something I don't particularly like about myself. But, you know this. Thankfully, I and my strange ways are not strange to you. You know them, well. 

I just finished listening to the book, Till We Have Faces by C.S. Lewis and the title has always intrigued me and perplexed me. I have always been curious about it, but assumed it too heady for me to comprehend as my previous attempts at reading C.S. Lewis have been futile—I never managed my way through Mere Christianity and was too frightened by the Screwtape Letters to continue; although I have been inspired at my core by The Chronicles of Narnia and The Great Divorce, I doubted my ability to navigate through this novel. But, through Audible and a slew of household chores, I managed to find myself at the end. Still curious as to the the meaning of the title, I looked up a symbol analysis of "faces" in the book and was stunned by this quote: 

"Orual ultimately realizes that the gods cannot 'meet us face to face till we have faces' (294), implying that the having a face includes being conscious of one’s entire self, both good and bad, and understanding one’s motives and the results of one’s actions. Until then, the gods will remain silent, unwilling to waste time trying to make mortals understand what they’re willfully blind to." 

https://www.litcharts.com/lit/till-we-have-faces/symbols/faces

So, maybe I am waiting on a face, my face. Waiting to come to you as I feel my consciousness growing. It's uncomfortable and yet peaceful. Can it be both? I am experiencing both here, so it seems it can. 

All this to say, Papa, I need you, here, now. With me. As I wait, for both clarity to come or at least for the next step to arrive or reveal itself, and for my face. I am wrestling consciousness, I think  that is the most succinct way to phrase it. And as I am seeing myself, I see that I am afraid. It feels like a duality—I'm not sure if that makes sense in words or if it is only something that can be understood inside of oneself—but, again, I need you here.

Here, I bring these things of heart and mind to you:

• Investing in the house in Port Angeles and entering into business with Aerl's family. 

• Staying in California, this job opportunity—do we wait it out? If yes, how long? How do we know if and when to go home? I know you will tell us, but still I wonder. Interacting with his bosses, what is the best way to communicate with them when things have been so tricky and when their promises are not coming to fruition? Pursuing licensure in California as a contractor—do we continue, or do we scrap this pursuit and remain as employees? Dynamics with the folks we invited to join us—it is not working as planned, the promises we shared that were offered to us are not coming about and it is affecting some of those we love most. This makes our hearts heavy as our intention was to share the blessings we were thinking we were about to harvest—but the crop dried up, never bloomed. Right now there is no crop, there is no harvest. What here, and how, how do we navigate this? What is right, what glorifies you?

• Getting my masters in Christianity and the Arts at King's College London. Creativity, making art, design, writing, photography. If my mission field is the art world, and if garnering knowledge will make me to be more effective, it seems like a valid and worthwhile pursuit. If it is only to puff myself up and provide a piece of paper for my wafer-like confidence, then it is not. But if it is to make me more effective for ministry, then it is I believe. Is this true, it feels true. Asking even seems redundant, because you've been teaching me this all these years. A decade of learning, it has been.

• Retaining my design business, or finally freeing myself from the weight of it. Have I been trying to make my "design career" something it was never intended to become? Has my failure of "making it" been a dead weight that has held me from pursuing your intended mission for me? Can I let it go, do I make it something different, something more glorifying to you? If I don't need it to validate my soul, worth, and being, am I to use it as a tool, design, to finance the journey to where you do want me to go?

Well, that is a lot on my heart, but also, it doesn't seem like that much actually when I look at it from here—it seems smaller when I set it down. And of course it does. When something is on your back, in your pack, of course it feels larger, heavier, more daunting. When you set it down, you get a better perspective on it, you can see it for what it actually is rather than for solely how it feels. So that seems to be a practice on the importance of prayer. That is the title of this lesson here and now. Thank you for welcoming me, yet again, after my long delay. With this newfound levity, I can walk with the lightness of faith that you are here, that you are holding these things on my heart in your hands, and that these you carry on my behalf. Your yoke is easy and your burden is light. Amen.