Hello to you and hello to September. It seems as though each of these letters have begun with an Austin weather update. I can’t be sure when this became a normal part of my introduction writing rhythm, but I’ve noticed that we- as adult people- speak to one another acknowledging weather as a prerequisite to any further discussion. It’s hotter than I remember. It’s so windy today! We really need rain. Can you believe how cool it is? Weather is the diving board into both the shallow and deep end of conversation.
So, because I know you non-Texas readers are on the edge of your seat, let me indulge you. The temperature in Austin this morning has a seven in front. Not a nine. Not even a ten with an additional digit. A seven. Praise be for the unseasonable cool and favor from on high. As my fingers dance on the keys, the leaves from the shady tree I’m parked under mimic and groove along in the Califonia-esque breezes.
It’s the kind of morning I wish I could capture and replay. But since I can’t, I write about it instead. I have had a thing with writing since I learned how to competently do it in elementary school. I kept journals and diaries and would get scolded by teachers for writing notes to friends with obnoxiously bright colored pens and complicated paper-folding strategies. Words matter to me. So I speak them and write them often.
I received a text message from a friend last week telling me how she wants to be better at consistently praying but struggles with putting things into words. She asked, “Can I write my prayers out in a journal? Is that even a thing?” If you know me at all, you can imagine the joyous heart-leap within me. Oh you have definitely asked the right girl about that. I answered her.
Ever since my junior year of high school I have written prayers to God. It started very proper and polite. We were new- God and me- and proper and polite is where most relationships start. Soon though, after pages and pages my heart started to soften. Trust started to build. I began asking questions. I began expressing feelings. I wrote honestly about my doubts and vulnerably about my fears. I wrote for pages and pages on behalf of others’ pain. I wrote verses that meant something to my young self and quotes I wanted to remember from sermons I listened to.
I wrote when I was tired in the early mornings before 7 am volleyball practice in college. I wrote at night when I had trouble falling asleep because of friends or boys. I wrote as tears fell and smeared the words out of desperation or confusion. I wrote and I wrote and I wrote my prayers. Sometimes they sounded like praise, other times they were drama-filled lament, but over the last twenty years and close to forty journals, God and I have a cool thing going. I love Him. I trust Him. I want to talk to Him and love to hear His voice. I feel the most me sitting before him with an empty page and pen in my hand. We’ve been through a lot together on these pages.
So what about you? I know writing prayers down isn’t for everyone. But here are a few things I’ve learned if you have always hoped to write prayers, but haven’t consistently yet.
Come to grips with your distraction. We are all sorrowfully distracted. No one is better than any other in this way. I write prayers because I cannot string a conscious thought together for longer than thirty seconds. That is the formation of this world against us all. I start many entries in my journal, I am so distracted today, God. He knows. It’s okay.
When you feel like writing is too vulnerable, keep going. There is something wild that happens in our brains and hearts when we write down what’s really going on to the God who already knows. Seeing it plainly in your very own penmanship can bubble up all sorts of things within us. Fight shame with the fact that this God who you are praying to KNOWS all the garbage and loves you forever anyway.
If you get to the point where you write something that is actually too vulnerable, rip it out and rip it up. Listen, sometimes you get on a roll with God in prayer and things come out in confession or repentance that may be for you, Him and a very trusted friend. But maybe not for your snoopy ten year old. So rip and rip, friend. You got it out. You went to God with it. He’ll lead you with what’s next.
If you’re having trouble praying about your life, start praying for someone else. The Holy Spirit doesn’t mess around. Sometimes He leads me to pray for someone who I am finding highly annoying. Sometimes He leads me to pray for someone I haven’t thought about in a decade. Sometimes I just start praying for my kids. If you’re finding that YOU is a hard place to start- start with them.
Remember God is after your heart more than your perfect articulation. You would worry about me and my thought patterns if I let you read some of my journals. Often it makes zero sense to the human eye, but thankfully we’re not presenting these prayers to the human eye. God sees all and sees us. He doesn’t need anything to make perfect sense. He is the definition of perfect sense.
If it’s been two days, two weeks, two months or two years since your last entry, WHO CARES? God isn’t keeping score, so you don’t have to anymore. Humble yourself in the freeing self-acceptance that you won’t do this every day. I don’t. My expectation for myself is simply to come, so whenever I do, I am so happy to be there.
Go back and read your entries. I believe God has received more glory and gratitude out of me because I have written prayers. I am tragically forgetful about the prayers I pray, but this simple act of re-reading them (even when they are silly, illegible or make no sense) points me back to the one with the answers. And I walk away stunned in thankfulness.
Y’all, I hope this gets you writing and conversing with our great God. If you need a great prayer journal, I am passionate about a specific brand and will go full sackcloth and ashes mode if they ever discontinue it. Reach out if you want to know more.
I will double up next month in what I am reading and learning because with kids back in school, I actually can- read and learn things. :)
Until October,
Kristin
P.S. I have zero photos of me writing prayers- which is how it should be. So enjoy the next best thing: me standing in Oxford, England by a door of my favorite color with my favorite number, wearing a coat. Remember coats?
xoxo
