Clearly, I'm not blogging every day this year. Just hit and miss, and I've been missing more than I've been hitting lately. But that doesn't mean I'm not celebrating Lent this year. I'm doing something different. It's just as much of a challenge as last year's sacrifice, but in a different way. When I blog, I write out the words, and I send them out into the universe, and I have very little idea who reads it or what happens next with the people who read it. I have very little face to face interaction in regards to the blog. It won't be that easy this time.
This year I have challenged myself to pray with other people. Every day. Anyone. Someone. About anything. It has been an interesting Lent so far. Like the other day at school in the teacher's lounge. Some of us were having lunch together and someone asked if we had heard about Margaret's grandson. Margaret has been a teacher at C-S since I was in the third grade. To say someone who has taught Kindergarten for over 25 years is an amazing woman is the understatement of the century. Anyway, her grandson has been diagnosed with a form of Leukemia. He's three. She's got to be terrified for him and her kids. We talked about how we'd like to do something to help the family, and one lady said,"What's his name again?"
"Jeffrey," came the reply. "I might forget by the time I pray for him tonight, so I'll probably just call him Margaret's grandson." she admitted.
Before I could stop myself, I said "You don't have to wait, you know. You could do it now." ("Shut up shut up shut up!" I'm thinking to myself! What the heck are you SAYING!!! My brain screams!) "You know for Lent I've taken on praying with other people," I half mumbled, apologetically.(Oh crap! Did I really just say that?) "Let's do it!" Tracy Mannes says. She is on the bandwagon! God love her, she gives me courage when mine is failing. "Shall we hold hands?" she asks the other women at the table. All co-workers. All educators. All women of Faith. All of us realized that although we know each other to be Christian women, we've never spoken to our Maker as one. We've never prayed together. At least if they did, I wasn't there.
So we all stand. Holding hands as one. Together in Christian love, we hold up Margaret in prayer. We ask God to be with Jeffrey and his family through this difficult time. We ask for the courage to be the friends that Margaret needs. We ask that if healing is in His will, it will come quickly, and if it's not, that the family would find their strength in the love of their Maker. I thank God for these women of faith that I work with. I thank God for the sacredness of that moment.
Amen.
I wonder what they were thinking as we went back to work.
I was thinking, "That was terrifying, and I'm so glad it happened." I know it shouldn't be a big deal to pray with other people. I'm not shy, and God and I have this running conversation all day long. (I do not require an invisible friend, I have a REAL one!) What's so frightening about inviting someone else in on the conversation? Maybe it's the fear that they won't get it. This Love is something so pure and beautiful, that I would never allow anything to threaten it, and inviting someone else in is a big risk. But I have already seen that when it pays off, and you are a part of a prayer circle, that love becomes SO MUCH GREATER than you and the others praying with you. It grows and glows and fills your soul with hope.
Will you pray with me this Lent?
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