Praise Break!

 I've been looking back over the things I wrote on this blog between 2006 and 2013. Two things have struck me about my writing:

1. I don't feel like I can still write like I used to.

I think it was because I practiced, which reminds me that I just need to start writing again.

2. I was lost and I was proud of it.

The answer to the 2nd point lies in the resounding grace and mercy of God's redemption. It is amazing that God called me back from that place of floundering, irreverent doubt. There is a post where I used lower case "g" for God and upper case "F" for fate. I was thumbing my nose at religion, flaunting my rebellion. I quoted from philosophy and the Tao de Ching and Richard Dawkins. I got a tattoo on my forearm to celebrate myself. It is a man with a walking stick, standing on a path under a waterfall. To me it represented how I had found my own way. I embodied what Paul wrote to Timothy about below.

"For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine and accurate instruction [that challenges them with God’s truth]; but wanting to have their ears tickled [with something pleasing], they will accumulate for themselves [many] teachers [one after another, chosen] to satisfy their own desires and to support the errors they hold,"  II Timothy 4:3 Amplified Bible

The truth that I refused to see was clear to others. Gil, who was a Buddhist, told me that I would find my way back to faith again. Carol openly scoffed at my claim to be an atheist. Others, secure in their own doubt and defiance of God, congratulated me on my "free thinking" and wanted to hear how I had arrived at these conclusions. Between the lines of my writing, in numerous emotional posts, it is clear that I was missing something. I wrote so many posts about how unhappy I was, then apologized and blamed it on my infertility, or my period, or something else.

Today, I was walking the dogs in the snow on the mountain, and spending some time with God. I'm learning something really powerful about quiet time with God. I don't always know what to say when I'm praying. I used to come to God with a formula. Follow the pattern set forth in the Disciple's Prayer (commonly called the Lord's Prayer). Or I would come to God with a list of everything I wanted. I think that God is happy to hear from me, and I'm not saying there is any right or wrong way to pray. But today, and many times, when there is something on my mind, I needed to start with praise. 

This week we read Psalm 148. The Psalmist makes a list- mountains, hills, fruit trees, cedars, wild animals, cattle, small creatures, flying birds, and many more. He simply exhorts everything and everyone that exists to praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. What a good place to start when you're not sure what to say!

So that's what I did. 

"Praise the Lord, you snow-covered hemlock trees! Praise the Lord, you blackberry bushes hanging over the trail! Praise the Lord, beautiful bright blue sky!" 

That praise entered my soul, and suddenly I knew what the rest of my prayer was. 

"God, I trust you." 

I remembered my list, my parents who are sick, loved ones who need to be saved, my 11 year old who got written up for standing on the chair and running out of the room Friday, my questions about how to best serve God. 

"God, I trust you with my list. I know you're going to do what's best." 

My heart was filled with peace.

Our praise is so powerful! Praise truly opens the gates of heaven.