Prayer Drawing -Fear of community.

To me, this picture represents how I feel about community. I really don't know how to express the feelings that led to this picture, but the water droplet that is falling is a tear that comes down from my fear of opening up, to being vulnerable, and being an active part of community.

One of my strengths is the ability to help others open up and to be able to encourage them in what's going on in their life. One of my biggest weaknesses -allowing others to do the same for me.

When I think about doing that in my own life I always struggle with thinking about why the individual would care because it seems like a silly thing to tell them what's going on in my life. I always downsize how much it hurts me because I'm used to keeping things bottled inside. It may seem like I'm strong to keep things together, but it's a weakness in an inability to share what is going on inside of me.

However, I've found that as much as I want to keep things bottled up and hold on to them, I've found that what's in my heart still seems to leak out, just a little, but enough to give me hope that it's the right thing. In the times that I encourage others, and open myself up a little to encourage them, I find that I'm watering a little bit of the dry ground in my life.

So the dry ground represents the community in my life. The little sprout of life shows that it's not because the ground isn't fertile, but because I haven't watered it in my own life. I am trying to learn to water it with tears of happiness and tears of sadness. To let people into my life, into my insecurities, so they can lift me when I'm afraid or broken, and rejoice with me when there are blessings or accomplishments.

I'm learning -or hoping, that with the right community of love around me, I can learn how to open up and let other people help cultivate my life.

I hope that maybe my experience might give you the strength to do the same. Perhaps your issue isn't with community and opening up in general, maybe there's some small area that you're afraid to open up to others about, or opening up to God. You're holding on to your pain so tight that you're not allowing life to come out of your experience. Perhaps together we can learn to let go of our pain and just see what happens in our lives.

With the hope of having the strength to be "weak",
Kate

Prayer Drawing -Rocks of my faith

This was done during a period of silence from God. This picture is very symbolic as each thing represents the rocks of my faith that I hold on to when God doesn't seem as present as He normally does. The crosses obviously represent Christ as the rock of my salvation, and the mountain represents the upward battle of following Him. The pile of rocks represent the 12 stones that the Israelites took out of the Jordan River as reminders of the things that God had done for them. To me, this makes me remember the times that God has moved in my life -from the way that I met Robert, to my experience in the river, and the little things that God does throughout the week. And the gems on the ground represent the scriptures that give me comfort. I've always called the lesser known scriptures -the ones that aren't the overused "cliches"- the gems of the Bible. 

Throughout the time that I was working on this I really felt a connection to God even when I couldn't feel His presence or hear anything from Him. It's a reminder that when I don't understand the present and I don't know what's going to happen in the future, I can always lean on the past and know that God has been there for me and because He has I know He always will.

So I would urge you to think about what you set as the rocks of your faith. Try to reflect on it during your "mountain top" experiences when everything seems crystal clear and then write it down so you can remember it and encourage yourself when things don't seem to be going the way that you want them to. When you don't hear God and you don't know what He's doing...or when you're being attacked in your faith. 

Or even if you're not in a mountain top experience, try to think back to the things that God has done in your life, when He's made Himself known to you and try to remember the reactions that you had to that. Remember that God is the same today as He was then. He is the great I AM and if He's not blessing you, He's probably teaching you. 

Trust Him because above everything else, He's loving you.

Kate.

Prayer drawing: The hands of God and Adam.

          This is the first of my spiritual prayer drawings (yes I drew this!). This may be something a lot of you guys know about, but something I just learned about, and I really like it. I have found that there has been real power in the times that I am spending thinking about God and just letting my spirit pray.
          The other thing that I really like about it and what made me first try it when it was explained to me, is that it brings a new perspective to prayer. Instead of bringing a to-do list to God...it gets you praying about different things -more abstract things.


       This week I found myself thinking about how God reaches out to God and how I reach back to Him. This was really easy as it was Easter time...the ultimate God reaching out to mankind story. However, things began to get even more personal as the week went on....it was as if my week was following this reaching out theme.

       I have another post about how I'm going on a God-date with Robert. This is because God personally reached into my life and wants to celebrate my efforts as a wife and how I've stood by Robert's side during some hard times last semester. But God wants to celebrate something in my life. How crazy is that! It's a new way that I get to experience God. It's so cute. And it really brings me to look at God in a new way. It's not about rules and doing things. God wants a relationship with us, and like a parent, He wants to be celebrating our successes with us. God wants to be in on our community -in our life...not just us always striving for His... :)

        The next little story that I have has to do with one of my friend here at the college. We were having a random devotional life chat date and as usual God just blessed us with wonderful conversation. We were talking about where we were at with God and we were in the same place. We were both talking about how it seemed that God wasn't talking to us at the moment and how it didn't seem like we fit into the tradition explanations to why God was speaking to us (these generally are sin or that we weren't obedient to the last thing God called us to do).

         As we were talking we began to gain a new perspective on the situation. That perhaps it wasn't anything that we were doing wrong, but that we were just walking silently, side-by-side with the Lord, like two lovers who are completely content in the moment, just breathing it in. It's like when you get to that point in a relationship when you don't need to fill in the silences. When there aren't any directions needed for the future, no discipline needed -and you're just able to be content in each other's presence.

       So this week I would say that I've just gained some new perspectives on who God is and how He wants to relate in our lives. In a world where we are always being told we aren't enough...even in churches we are always being told the next spiritual thing to work on (listen to God, how to pray, etc) God is saying....just being with me is enough. Just spend time with me....no gimmicks, no three step plan to hear my voice, just simply spending time with me in relationship....it's taking it back to it's simplicity.

      I think we live in a world where we try to complicate and twist things. In America, we live in a society that says whoever is the most busy is the most important. We idolize church goers who volunteer for everything as the standard to live up to. But really, our relationship with God isn't about how much we tithe, how many hours a week we spend at church, or how much we are out there doing things for God....those are all missing the point.
 
       In any other relationship, it's not about how much we pay someone, how many hours we running errands for them...it's about spending time communicating with them...getting to know them...the heart to hearts. That's what God wants...He wants our lives to be a constant heart to heart with Him....so why are we complicating things?