Tag: love

Inspirational

Bumping into the Light (Prayer, Awkwardness and the Wildest Love)

Jana Greene8 Comments

By: Jana Greene

I’m not sure if God is moving me slightly out of my comfort zone, or if he just keeps changing where “comfortable” abides in me, but He has been manifesting His love in the wildest ways lately.  Like standing under a blackening sky, I find myself a bit afraid of the darkness in the world until….Look! A tiny star appears, and then another, and another.  He keeps bringing points of undeniable light all around me until I am so surrounded by his obvious love, and the darkness is overpowered.  I just keep bumping into light and love, utterly grateful.

One of the areas becoming new to me is praying aloud with others.  Strangers.  I am perfectly comfortable writing to God, writing about God, writing with the Holy Spirit guiding me.   But verbally, I am not eloquent in the least.  I stumble over my words and stutter in making my request. Complicating the matter is that I don’t do so well in large groups, or in public speaking, and the role I’m stepping into requires both.   But still, I’ve felt the tugging at my spirit to step out of what is comfortable in order to plead on behalf of others in front of the father.  So, I’m trying to be obedient in that.

I am blessed that one of my closest friends, Melissa, is a gifted pray-er. The first time I prayed for others with her, I was humbled immensely.  She and I were huddled together with a couple of people who were hurting and needed prayer, all of us crying, and my friend’s words were cascading into the small, intimate space between our faces.  She first invited God to our circle, and then her words just knew what to ask Him for.  And as she made petition to the Lord to heal the hurts, she praised him for meeting us in that place and for all that He was already at work doing.

Request and praise.

Make vulnerable and give glory.

Ask and trust.

Afterward, I thought about her glorious prayer, which was not stumbled over, but straight from her heart to God’s in the most raw and holy way.

“You are such a good pray-er,” I told her, and hugged her tight.  But later on, I wondered if “pray-er” is even a word found in the dictionary.  As it turns out, it is not.

Prayer is defined as an address (as a petition) to God in word or thought, or a set order of words used in praying.  But in doing a little research, I found out that “one who prays” is called: a “Supplicant” -one who makes humble petition. My friend, Melissa, is an excellent Supplicant.

We, in relationship to God our Father, are all Supplicants – whether our set of words flows easily or with struggle.  Perhaps when we link hands with a stranger and petition God to hear us, our willingness to act with supplication is part of our prayer.  I’m trying to learn this when I pray with others, not to worry about presentation, but presence.

Last Sunday after church, I went up front to pray for others with my Supplicant friend.  We held hands as we waited for others to come forward for prayer, and I peered out into the congregation.  The lighting in our sanctuary is kept very low during this time, so that worshipers might concentrate more fully on God instead of worrying what others might think.  I’ve always appreciated this twilight-prayer time personally because I get so easily distracted, but today, it looked dark out there in the crowd.

Until a young lady and her friend came up for prayer- two tiny stars of light until they were in our arms and under Melissa’s fervent prayer. I allowed myself to stop nervously formulating prayers for my time aloud, and melted into the pleads and tears and worship that was spreading throughout the entire sanctuary like wildfire.  I was the “amen” section for this prayer-time, which was just fine with me.  All of us – we prayed in agreement – and  Jesus, huddled up with us, delighting in  Melissa’s beautiful words of supplication, through her gifting – music to His ears.

On the walk back to our seats, we could not move without bouncing into light and love, and I wondered….

Is it possible  my stumbling on words is of no consequence to God, who considers the heart even in silent prayers?  If He can read my thoughts, he knows my gifting and lack thereof, He can translate my awkward out-loud requests. Perhaps the word ‘prayer’ is both a noun to describe words that petition and a noun that describes the humbled person doing the petitioning.   Maybe we are walking, breathing prayers – going about the daily business of living in constant pleading and praising.  Continual requests and praise as we make ourselves vulnerable, asking and trusting and giving Him glory throughout.

And He answers, overpowering darkness….manifesting His love in the wildest ways.

Spiritual

The World Gone Crazy, but we still have The Friend

Jana Greene2 Comments
I took this picture at the Little Chapel in NYC at the base of Ground Zero. The banner was decorated by children to cheer the emergency workers and volunteers during the recovery. The Little Chapel, directly next to the Twin Towers was virtually untouched by the carnage that day.

By: Jana Greene

“Judas (not Iscariot) said: ‘Master, why is it that you are about to make yourself plain to us but not the world?’ (in reference to ascending to heaven).

“Because it is a loveless world, “said Jesus. “A sightless world.  If anyone loves me, he will carefully keep my word and the Father will love him – we’ll move right into the neighborhood!  Not loving me means not keeping my words.  The message you are hearing isn’t mine.  It’s the message of the Father who sent me.”   John 14:22-27 (MSG)

Over the past few weeks, I have felt like the world were falling apart.  Losing hope, like Jesus is not welcome in many neighborhoods.  As we are approaching a Presidential  election, media coverage (largely unbalanced) is stepping up the mud-slinging and Americans are picking mud off the ground and  hurling it at each other.  Civil rights issues are at the forefront, and people and businesses with belief systems that have been practiced and adhered to for centuries are being sucked into the vortex under the guise of “civility”.

It is un-hip now to be a Christian, no matter which side of one particular debate that Christian might fall on. That’s the crazy thing – Christians as a whole are slowly but surely starting to be persecuted  in America – not by bodily threat, but by that thing that Americans have long disdained: intolerance.  A witch hunt for historically conservative people is still a witch hunt.

There is even a movement to make “all religion illegal”.  It is still a small and restless, largely underground phenomenon, but I can assure you, it exists.  I have seen the evidence with my own eyes, in my own town.   The frightening thing is that such a thing doesn’t seem  out of the realm of reality these days.

Allow me to describe the current government trajectory as I see it with my earthly eyes:  It is growing into a massive,  monstrous machine that sucks the civil liberties of the masses into a grinder in the name of its own twisted definition of the ‘greater good’.  In the end of digestion, this ravenous machine – having  gorged on the constitutional sacrifices of Americans, craps out a tiny brick of pseudo-rights for a small segment of society.  That’s positively un-American.  And yes, that’s my opinion.

So far as I know, we are all still entitled to have one.  But leaning too much on my passionate opinions and too little on my faith doesn’t usually go well.

Everyone seems angry with everyone else right now, myself included.  I hate that feeling, that angst.  Because it comes from a place of fear.  I need to take a step back and breathe, and give my earthly eyes a rest.

It seems to be American against American, in chat rooms, on blog pages, on Facebook, even in our homes, our neighborhoods.  It is so easy to get focused on the manifestations of evil all around – the horrors that took place in a movie theater in Colorado, the epidemic of human trafficking – which takes in our own country!  The distractions of feeling politically passionate because of movements and issues, and freaking out with fear about the possibilities.  The longing for justice, because it is so out of whack. I get so wrapped up in my emotional frustrations with the entire world, which  are largely out of my control, that I forget that none of it is a surprise to my God.   I forget that He himself said that it is a loveless world, and that even when it feels completely out of control, He did not leave us all here stranded.

“I’m telling you these things while I’m still living with you,” Jesus continues in the verse.  ” The Friend, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send at my request, will make everything plain to you.  he will remind you of all the things I have told you.  I’m leaving you well and whole (on earth) – that’s my parting gift to you.  Peace.  I don’t leave you the way you’re used to being left – feeling abandoned, bereft. So don’t be upset.  Don’t be distraught.”

Distraught doesn’t even begin to TOUCH how I’ve been feeling lately.  But that’s what happens when you look around the world for peace, instead of exclusively  within – where He has placed it.  Within, where He gives us The Friend, who in turn fills us up so that we can love on a loveless world.  The Friend, to guide us through a sightless world.  Hearing the message of the Father, who IS love, instead of talking heads on the news, and instead of the voices of hatred.

Because I will worship God on my knees forever and ever, and no law can stop me.  The government didn’t give me the right to pray and worship and it cannot take that right away.   It is a right endowed by my Creator, who will is not subject to the rules of man, and who gives a peace that passes understanding to ALL who ask for His redemption.  There is also a lot of beauty still in the world.  Because the Holy Spirit is still on this planet and within us, there is still majesty, purity, grace, hospitality, and love – so much love.  God fills all of us imperfect, cracked vessels with his love in order to love on a world that is falling apart.  My hope is in Jesus.

Amen and God Bless America!

Dogs · Holy

The Holiness of Old Dogs

Jana Greene25 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

There is something holy about old dogs.  I can’t quote scripture to prove it, but I can see the sacredness in the eyes of my old dog, Emmie.  And I know God sees it in her too, that He placed it there.

I’m finding that God often places the holy and pure things where we least expect them.  I know that He uses my dog to make me a better person, to teach me things.

Emmie has been a good and faithful friend to me for more than fourteen years.  A Golden Retriever (with a bit of Chow-Chow) she never knew the first thing about retrieving. But being kind and loving, joyful and true?  She knows everything about that.

When I call to her, she comes to me – even though she is old and creaky probably has a million good doggie reasons why she would rather not.  She might be on her soft bed, having the dream in which she is jumping the chain-link fence like she used to.  Or a dream in which she finally catches that tormenting cat.  But, she always comes to me when I call, tail in full-wag….. counting it all joy.  “Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds.” – James 1:2

She enjoys her life, with little concern for the future.  Although it’s not easy for her to get into the back seat these days, she loves car rides.  Groaning a little as I help her hoist her achy haunches up, she seems to say, Mom, roll down the window already!  We might be going to the park, or to the vet’s office; she knows either one is a possibility.  No matter!  On the road she  is just a smiling doggie in my rearview mirror, her coat an explosion of golden fur in the wind, her slobber forming a snail-like trail down the side of my car, anxious for nothing.  “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” –   Matthew 6:25 -27 (NIV)

Emmie is an expert on affection, both the giving and receiving of.  She hasn’t yet learned that she doesn’t need to sit on top of me to be with me.  She simply cannot get close enough, even when I am trying to get things done.  Her tail wagging furiously, she is conveying that she loves me too much to contain it in a lady-like, reserved manner.  It reminds me of times that I raise my hands at church during worship, unfettered by rules, overcome with gratitude…when I just cannot get close enough, love/grace/gratitude bubbling over.   “This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.” – 2 Corinthians 9:12 (NIV)

But the holiest attribute that Emmie displays might also be the most subtle.  It is the way she humbly seeks my face.  When offered a treat, her gaze is not on my hand (or the delicious bone I’m holding) … No, she is staring at the acceptance in my expression, her big, chocolate drop eyes searching to read my face.  Interestingly, the Bible reminds us to seek the face of God, not his hand and what he can offer us in the way of treats.  “Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.” – 1 Chron. 16:11

My sweet Emmie may not know about retrieving.  But she knows all about love, unconditionally.

Over the years….

In times of sorrow, I have buried my face in her uber-floofy coat and cried buckets of tears, and she didn’t seem to mind.  She lay perfectly still, only moving to lick my face.  Always compassionate.

In times of great joy, she has skipped circles around me, pouncing up and down as if she had a single clue as to what the celebration was all about.  Joyous oblivion.

In times of sickness or pain, she is my shadow, following me to the kitchen, the mailbox, even to the bathroom.  Endlessly loyal.

Yesterday, I bent down to kiss the top of her cone-y head like I have hundreds of times before.   I held her face up in my hands and looked into her eyes.  Heart melting, a feeling came over me of sweet reverence.  It took my breath away a little.  I’ve felt just this way before……

Where have I felt this feeling before?

And then I remembered:  standing in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.  I, as a tourist from North Carolina, standing in the sanctuary of the church, having never seen so regal a place, in the presence of magnificence….. awed and humbled.  How odd that the countenance of a loving, loyal animal would remind me of such a holy place.  The same sensation of being close to what His hand had fashioned flooded me in this realization:  Where God’s glory is manifest in the great majesty of  architecture and art, it is also manifest in the eyes of an old dog.

Holy and sacred – right where God placed it.

Spiritual

Sleepless

Jana Greene5 Comments

By:  Jana Greene

                Last night was a  self-choreography of tossing, turning, fitfulness.  Like synchronized swimming in the bed.    

                Yet, the sun still came up this morning, right on time.

                Last night, when I scrootched in bed next to my sleepy husband around 10:00 p.m., the possibility of slumber seemed promising.  I was in peaceful spirits because I had made it through the entire day without any pain medication at all.  For over a month, I had been weaning down to only one-half tablet per day at bedtime for pain due to a surgical procedure.  But not today, I thought, triumphantly.   This pain, I can handle.

                I tried to get comfortable, as the mild throbbing in my leg intensified.  Sleeping in the orthopedic boot is as awkward as sleeping with one of those giant “#1!” foam fingers you see waved around at football games strapped to your leg, if that foam finger were made of brick.  Still, I can usually manage to sleep a little.

                Not tonight.  It is now 1:00 in the morning.

                The pain is spread like a rash in my bones.  I take three Advil, and wait for them to negotiate with the pain.

                Meanwhile, I move my spastic-ness to the living room couch and try to settle in there.  There’s no point in keeping my hubby up as well.  Our dog – an elderly Golden Retriever with a lapdog mentality, tries to jump on the couch next to me.    I scold her.  She slurps me with a kiss to the face anyway, because, honestly, Golden Retrievers don’t know any other way to react except with love.  I could learn a lot from my dog.

                On this night, the Advil is a crappy negotiator.  I take the boot off, but my ankle feels too vulnerable.

                 So, I put the boot back on, and it feels heavy on the hardware in my leg, like there is no flesh between it and the titanium plate.

 I don’t feel like “#1!”

                I start to worry about things, because the peace in my tired mind had vacated hours ago.  One anxious thought leads to another until the soundtrack to my mind goes something like this:  

“I wonder if I took enough chicken out to defrost last night. Did I remember to feed the cat?  I wonder if Blues Traveler broke up, or if they might be touring?  I like harmonica music.  Hmmmm…..What bills have I not paid yet?    What if our kids live with us forever and never fly the nest? (this is when the thoughts took a turn for the worse, I think.)   OHNO!  How can Bob and I make them NOT WANT TO live at home forever?  We make things way too easy for these girls…..How much RENT should we charge them?  Oh, no….but I WILL MISS THEM when the nest is EMPTY!  When should I look for another job?  WHAT IF I DON”T FIND ANOTHER JOB???  Why is the economy so bad?  Where will the price of gas level out?  WHAT IF I NEVER WALK ON MY ANKLE NORMALLY AGAIN AND   WHAT IF I CAN”T LOSE THESE FIFTEEN POUNDS AND NEVER BRING MY TRYGLICERIDES DOWN AND OHMYGOSH, I”VE BLOGGED EVERY DETAIL OF MY LIFE AND WHY DID I DO THAT???”……

                You get the idea.

                3:34 in the a.m. now.

                My oldest daughter be-bops out of her room to go to the bathroom down the hall and sees me on the sofa.  I shut my eyes quickly and try to fake sleep (oh how the tables do turn)…..it’s too late. She lights up like a Christmas tree.

                “You have insomnia too, Mom?”  She beams, like we’ve both been invited to a Prince’s ball, instead of sentenced to a night without sleep. 

                Because usually, when neither she nor I  can sleep, we agree to watch a movie, or play Scrabble together, or look at funny pictures of animals saying captioned things on the internet until one of us gets sleepy.  She is young, at that glorious time in life in which she can choose to eat or not eat what she wants.  Sleep or not sleep.  It makes no difference to her body….yet. 

                No, I grouse at her, turning over on the couch.  Not tonight. 

Then, it comes, the slightest hint of drowsiness, as if someone is pouring sleep over my head.  Ah….sweet, sweet slumber.  Sleepiness is warm, I think, pulling my soft blanket up and smiling a bit.  Really warm.  Whew…..I kick off the blanket, panting.  Dammit!  This is not sleepiness!

                HOT. FLASH. 

                If these villians all formed an alliance to combat the superhero of Sleep…they would be Pain, Anxiety and Menopause. 

And they were attempting to take up headquarters in my body! 

                I start to cry a little now, because I am being slowly drenched in sweat, and I’m already miserably tired.  Sometimes I have to get to the point of crying to remember to pray, and this was one of those times.

                I began to pray for myself.  I asked that God would help me combat the forces keeping me awake.  Ouch, Lord.  Ouch!  And a hot flash, really?   But as I pray, I began thinking about all of the people I am blessed to know who are standing in much bigger need of prayer.  I didn’t really want to , to be truthful.  I wanted to complain and be grumpy.  But….Names and faces, appearing in  my mind, rapid-fire….until there is no room to worry about lesser things.   I lay still (and blanket-less) and try to concentrate. 

I see the face of a friend who is in the intensive care unit in a hospital in Chapel Hill, fighting for her life.  Pray.   I think of my three closest friends, and the battles they are going through right this very minute, real issues with potentially lasting implications, and I ask God’s guidance for each of them by name.  Several long-distance friends from high-school, brought back into my life via the miracle of Facebook, who stand in the need of prayer two-thousand miles away…..please, Lord, hear their cries.

Miles are no hindrance to God.  And neither are units of time….hours, minutes, seconds…time that I’ve designated for sleeping.  Maybe He had designs on my insomnia for other purposes.  Maybe for prayer.  

There was no sleeping last night, and I will stumble around today with Uncle-Fester-esque circles under my eyes.  I will also most likely be a bit ill-tempered with sleep deprivation.   But as I write this, my elderly Golden Retriever is wrapped around my feet, not seeming to mind the awkward orthopedic boot under her head, not seeming to mind that I wouldn’t let her on the couch with me last night.  She is sleeping, not a worry in the world.

I could learn a lot from my dog.