True Prayer

I want to write an entry about prayer. I continue to be increasingly amazed at the power of prayer. On Good Friday I asked to be prayed for concerning coming to a conviction about going from or staying on Lopez Island. I asked God, Jesus to send me an answer that would really stick and be right. I felt the Holy Spirit in my body and then went home. I had a good night sleep and then the next day woke and went about my business. I met Steve after work; we came home and were sitting and relaxing in the kitchen when he spoke the words that seemed to be the answer to my prayer.

Steve suggested that life was good here and wondered if it would be crazy if we decided to stay. I remarked that I did not think it crazy at all. It felt like a huge relief to us both to not have the distressingly hard work of a move ahead of us, that we could enjoy our summer and use the money we had for the move to invest in the new Lopez Island Brewery. Shortly after we made this decision it began to sink in my bones how I truly felt. I was willing to make sacrifices for my relationship and our life as a whole. Yet here I was blessed with an answer that felt so good.

I love my sister, I love this Island and its beauty, I cherish my connections here, and I enjoy the regular love and support of my parents. I look forward to helping my sister raise her child, a spirit that has come to us and I feel is being called to this earth to bless us in amazing ways. It seemed to be a sign that Steve was asked to be on the Board of Lopez Island Brewery, and this was the beginning of us making a U-turn in our decision to move.

The true beauty of this answer was that Jesus knew what was inside of me and what was right for the both of us better than I did myself. It may not sound like such significant events, but I knew in the moment of our conversation what we were deciding was a most final decision. All winter I went back and forth with my feelings about moving or staying as Steve was what seemed like permanently decisive in his desire to leave the Island and move to Anacortes. I had recently given in fully and we had visited with my mother and made the finalized plans concerning moving into her little house across the water. Yet when Steve spoke these words to me I knew it was Jesus speaking through him, and the answer to what I had asked in the form of prayer to find real truth and conviction in our decision.

My friends have said once you begin the practice of prayer you get hooked and continue to do so in the future. I have prayed since and the more I pray the more I enjoy the process and the stronger my prayer and my relationship with God becomes. There is nothing negative about being positive and loving and expressing your true needs to God in a way that exposes what truly resides within. He can see this in us, even though we become confused with our minds convincing us things that are not true, though may make sense in this world that we live. The truth is out there and I am so thankful for this. I feel even more the surrender as my Faith erupts in me like a pure force of light that I know cannot come purely from me. There is a divine and I am more and more convinced of this and in touch with it.

So Lord, let your light and love continue to guide me on my path, you truly are all knowing. I trust in and surrender to you, I am grateful for your wisdom as you lift the burden from my shoulders to be wise and all knowing. I do not need to have all the answers because I have you and you will guide me; you love me.