Mama Mondays

  I read this quote for class last week and kept thinking about it....  The extraordinary resurrection story in John 21 when Mary recognizes the risen Jesus as he simply says her name, tells us a great deal about our prayer and our growth into mature discipleship. To sustain “life in the Spirit” under pressure, we need to retain the ability to say to God, “Tell me who I am.” Because I’m not going to settle with what everybody else is telling me—I’m not even going to settle with what I am telling me. I need to hear it from God, the God who tells me. Because then I know that I exist, I live, I flourish, because of his speaking. “I have called you by name,” says God, “you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1). And on that divine speaking of our name rests our whole being. Something in our prayer is about quarrying down to that level where we can hear that God is creating me and you, now in this minute—breathing our names into the world, making us alive.  -Rowan Williams,  Being Disci...

  Thank you for sharing this book!! I read it on the plane to Spain and really appreciated it... Below is something I jotted down from the end of the book that Ian says he uses in his daily morning prayers.  From the need of being praised, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of being honored, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of being preferred, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of being consulted, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of being approved, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of being right, deliver me, Jesus. From the need of comfort and ease, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being humiliated, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being criticized, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being passed over, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being forgotten, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being lonely, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of being hurt, deliver me, Jesus. From the fear of suffering, deliver me, Jesus. O Jesus, help me put my self-im...

   image of a painting by Langford Barksdale above!  💛 Oh God, gather me now to be with you as you are with me.  Soothe my tiredness; quiet my fretfulness; curb my aimlessness; relieve my compulsiveness; let me be easy for a moment. O Lord, release me from the fears and guilts which grip me so tightly; from the expectations and opinions which I so tightly grip, that I may be open to receiving what you give, to risking something genuinely new, to learning something refreshingly different. Forgive me for claiming so much for myself that I leave no room for gratitude; for confusing exercises in self-importance with acceptance of self-worth; for complaining so much of my burdens that I become a burden; for competing against others so insidiously that I stifle celebrating them and receiving your blessing through their gifts. O God, gather me to be with you as you are with me. Amen. Ted Loder,   Guerillas of Grace