This year my Lenten discipline will not be giving up a certain food, fasting, or exercising consistently. Nope. Instead I will be writing.
How is that any different from what I am doing now? For the forty days of Lent and also Holy Week, I will be using this forum to write prayers. I am following the book Writing to God by Rachel C. Hackenberg. Every day, Ms Hackenberg shares a prayer, a Bible reading, and a writing prompt. Instead of whatever I want, I will be doing focused and disciplined writing. It should be interesting.
I will not be copying the daily prompt and posting it. I am pretty shaky on copyright law and if you are even slightly interested in this type of writing, I want you to buy Writing to God. I will be including the link to purchase it somewhere towards the bottom of this blog entry. I will also be including a link for Untangle Your Emotions, just in case you wanted to buy it, but haven’t, yet.
”The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the middle of the valley; and it was full of bones. He caused me to pass all around them, and behold, there were very many [human bones] in the open valley; and lo, they were very dry. And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?” And I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”“
Ezekiel 37:1-3 AMP
https://bible.com/bible/1588/ezk.37.1-3.AMP
Father God, I feel like I am walking in a valley of dry bones. Once again, in addition to me dealing with my feelings related to my spouse’s transition, I am dealing with eye problems like I did in 2020, kidney stone issues like 2021, and a bout of Covid like 2022. Now, it all came at once. Lord, I appreciate that You think that I have grown enough emotionally and spiritually to be able to handle this all at once. I’m not as certain. It feels like I am in a dry bone wasteland right now. I am in a holding pattern praying and trusting Your providence. Which is funny, because I know that is EXACTLY where you want me to be. As the ancient Israelites depended on You for their daily manna, weekly quail, and water from a rock, You want me to relax and trust in You for my needs. I absolutely do trust and have faith that You will provide. I get confused, because I know I’m not supposed to stress and trust Your provision, I am also told that I am to pray persistently for what I want. I am repeating the same prayers over and over again. I trust You. I know my prayers will be answered, but they’re not answered yet. When I pray the same things over and over, it kind of feels like I am whining. I don’t want to do that. Lord, while I keep praying and trusting, would You mind also let me know if I am on the right track? I know that in the past, my prayers were a checklist of stuff that I wanted. But, now, it’s not about what I want, it’s about how can I best share with the world the message that You want me to share. I have no answers – only questions and possibilities. Guide me. Help me. I would love to share a story of how the dry bones in my life got up and started doing the Macarena. But, I need a road map and a guide, because even with a map, I would get lost. I love You, God. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Here’s the links that I said that I would share. Because I choose to support my local independent bookseller, this link is for The Book Exchange in Marietta GA. If you live elsewhere, I encourage you to find an independent bookstore near where you live. Or, use this link, because I believe that they will ship.
Journey with Monica 