My husband and I talked about it and decided we would sign up for an hour and go there and pray together. When I arrived to sign up the time slots where nearly full, even those in the middle of the night. We picked 9 pm on Wednesday night and our sweet neighbor agreed to come sit at our house with our sleeping children.
On Monday and Tuesday I heard all these incredible things about other peoples prayer times. They gushed about how God met them there and that an hour wasn't nearly long enough. They oozed radiance as they talked about it, even if I couldn't see them in person. What if I didn't have that kind of experience? What if I went and missed the point all together?
We arrived for our time slot and relieved the people that had been praying before us. They were glowing, beaming really. I was really anxious to get started and see what this was going to be all about. We followed the guide around to different stations in the room.
At the first station we simply praised. There was music playing and scripture to help you along. There was an art station set up for those that like to praise that way. The next station was confession complete with note cards where you could write out your confession and then place them in the paper shredder. There was a station in which we prayed over our church staff and leadership. Then a station where we prayed for our community and one where we played for the world and the missionaries we sponsor.
As we followed along our prayers became more intense and I regretted the skepticism I had had about praying like this. At the last station we were to meditate on Psalm 23 and 24 and listen to what God told us. My husband and I took turns reading them out loud and then waited. And God met us there.
He reminded me, in light of my post yesterday: Big Scary Dreams, that he has blessed us abundantly. That I need for nothing. He told me I did not need to be afraid because He was walking by my side. Before we knew our hour and then some was up but it was hard to leave and when we stepped outside into the dark cold night I'm pretty sure we were glowing.
We really should have went to bed when we came home with our new early morning routine and all, but Dana had some homework to finish and my mind was so full that I really didn't think I could fall asleep. Pretty soon it was midnight and we were just crawling into bed.
At one o'clock our 2 1/2 year old woke up. She was complaining of ear pain and running a fever. She shares a room with our 1 year old and even though the sleep 5 feet apart they usually can sleep through the other one's cries, but not this morning. They went back and forth with the crying while we got Tylenol and teething tablets, drinks of water, diaper changes. We took turns separating them and trying to have them lay with us in our bed.
I seem to lose every last ounce of patience as a mom in the middle of the night. My husband on the hand is the opposite. So patient and loving and kind. So I lay there listening to one of them cry with the other in bed with me, racked with guilt because he needed to be sleeping with these long days he's putting in. So I took the crying child, our youngest, upstairs and told my husband to get some sleep. She's been eating us out of house and home lately so I thought maybe it was hunger pains and she needed a snack.
So that is how I found myself sobbing over Cheerios at 2 am. My husband came up and hugged me and then he said "Of course Satan would attack us tonight." I thought "well, yeah, since we decided to stay up until midnight." Then it hit me. It was because we had been diligently praying, because we had been seeking God and filled with the Spirit. I was mad then and I renounced Satan and told him to get lost. It was sometime around 2:30 that everyone fell into a deep sleep and it was not easy to get up with my husband when the alarm went off at 5. But if he was willing to do it, so was I. We are after all, a team.
And now I sit here drinking coffee and reflecting and praising God for last night.
God, my Shepard! I don't need a thing.
You have bedded me down in lush meadows,
You find me quiet pools to drink from.
True to your word, You let me catch my breath
and send me in the right direction.
Even when the way goes through Death Valley,
I'm not afraid when You walk at my side.
Your trusty shepherd's crook makes me feel secure.
You serve me a six-course dinner right in front of my enemies.
You revive my drooping head; my cup brims with blessing.
Your beauty and love chase me every day of my life.
I'm back home in the house of God for the rest of my life.
God claims earth and everything in it, God claims the World and all who
live on it. He built it on ocean foundations, laid it out on river girders.
Who can climb Mount God? Who can scale the holy north face?
Only the clean-handed, only the pure-hearted;
men who won't cheat, women who won't seduce.
God is at their side; with God's help they make it.
This, Jacob, is what happens to God-seekers, God-questers.
Wake up, you sleepyhead city! Wake up you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.
Who is the King-Glory? God, armed and battle-ready.
Wake up you sleepyhead city! Wake up, you sleepyhead people!
King-Glory is ready to enter.
Who is the King-Glory? God-of-the-Angel-Armies: He is King-Glory.
Psalm 23 & 24
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