A-Z Challenge - D: Door

Here's something I wrote a while ago on the subject of doors. Specifically, the kind that God opens when you knock. 

Hello, God. I just want to run something past you.

You know when Peter was miraculously released from prison? I know it in terms of Acts 12 in the Bible, but I imagine you remember it as if it were yesterday. 

Peter was in prison and then it got all dramatic; an angel appeared, chains fell off, doors opened by themselves and Peter walked free. I know he was pretty confused because it tells us so. At first he thought it wasn't actually happening to him, but just a vision, and then as the angel left and Peter is standing in the street gaping. 

It says that '...when he came to himself...'(Acts 12:10) he makes his way to where he knew his mates were hiding. I wonder what he was thinking. Amazed, scared, awestruck, confused, overjoyed, excited? I'm quite sure that he couldn't wait to find his friends and tell them what had happened. Then maybe a glass of wine or two?

So he knocks on the door and Rhoda answers it. 

'Peter! Wow! We thought you were in prison! It's a miracle! Come in and tell us all about it.'

Nope. 

'Peter knocked at the outer entrance, and a servant named Rhoda came to answer the door. When she recognised Peter's voice, she was so overjoyed she ran back without opening it and exclaimed, 'Peter is at the door!'

Acts 12:14

The disciples and Rhoda debate this for a while. Surely not. Peter is in prison. He's not at the door. Maybe it's his angel? (Seems to me that the disciples at this point were much more used to angels than we are these days. Why is that? If I'd been there I'd have suggested that it wasn't Peter at all but perhaps someone who sounded like him, but no, his angel). 

Anyway, Peter's still at the door. Ahem. Knock, knock. 

It is Peter. It isn't Peter. Yes it is. No, it can't be. And so on. 

Knock, knock.

'But Peter kept on knocking, and when they opened the door and saw him, they were astonished.'

Acts 12:18

When they eventually open the door, Peter can get in. I'd love to have been there. 

'Of course it's me, you halfwits. I've been out there twenty minutes!'

Acts 12:18b (my version).

How wonderful, the tale he tells. A miracle indeed! Saved from Herod and secure in the knowledge that God Almighty is watching out for him and has a job for him to do. I bet the wine flowed and they talked into the night, even after Peter left (it says, '... for another place.' Where? That sort of thing intrigues me. Where did he go?) 

Anyway. It was a night to remember indeed.  I bet songs of praise were sung.

The thing that made me think was this: the disciples had been praying and praying for Peter. 

'So Peter was kept in prison, but the church was earnestly praying to God for him.'

Acts 12: 5 NIV

They prayed earnestly. They prayed, presumably, that he would be alright, that he wasn't having too nasty a time, and that he might soon get out of prison.  

So they pray that he might be released, and he is. And yet, when he arrives at the door, they don't believe it. To the extent that Rhoda leaves the poor bemused man standing in the street knocking and knocking and looking over his shoulder for prison guards while she gets a bit high pitched in the living room with the disciples. 

They prayed fervently and their prayers were answered. And yet they were astonished. 

Nothing changes, does it? How incredibly reassuring that the disciples were taken aback and disbelieving when their prayers were answered just like I am. 

I pray about something (how often can I actually say I pray 'earnestly'? Feeling a bit uncomfortable about that) and then, sometimes, I am aware that you have answered my prayer. Of course, I suspect that you answer them much more often than I realise, but on the occasions where I see it and recognise it, what do I do? I run about like Rhoda telling people, 'You'll never guess what's happened! It's amazing!'

So I pray in faith, and yet I don't expect an answer. I'm sorry. The faith part is a bit thin, hey? 

Is it a sign of spiritual maturity when answered prayer, even the dramatic type, doesn't send me into a flat spin? When I'm not 'astonished' as the disciples? When I can say, 'Of course God answered my prayer. I'm not surprised; I knew he would'. Hmm. Is that faith, then? 

I think so.

'"Jesus replied, 'Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt...you can say to this mountain, 'Go, throw yourself into the sea,' and it will be done."'

Matthew 21:21

Ah. It's about the measure of faith, then. Is it possible for me to have a faith that can move mountains? I pray and I think I'm not doubting... but I'm wavery and wondering and I can't honestly say that I'm particularly earnest, much of the time. I'm in good company, because the disciples (who clearly did a better line in earnest) were astonished and doubtful when it came to answered prayer. Thank you for their humanity; they were the very foundations of the Church and yet were reassuringly slow on the uptake.

Of course, the bottom line is that it is always a breathtaking, awe-inspiring wonder that the God of the universe would listen to me at all, let alone answer a prayer in my little life? I can't imagine taking it in my stride, or being unimpressed. 

I think for now I'll go on trying to practice praying earnestly, and I shall be on the lookout for answers in an expectant kind of way. 

Help me to notice more of the answered prayers that I know are heaped up all around me. Help me to be more sensitive to your hand in my life, Father. Show me how to pray with expectation, not just with a vague hope, for insurance, on the offchance. 

Give me more faith, Lord. I want to be faith-full. I want to hear from you so often that your voice is familiar to me. I want to chat. I want to listen. I want to pray in such a way that your will is done, here on earth, as it is in heaven. I want to bring a little bit of your Kingdom right here. 

You said that when I knock, the door will be opened. Help me to believe that. 

Help me to believe that. 

My God is good. He answers prayers. 

Back to basics

Morning, God.

I've wondered what to say. I've been sitting here long after my coffee's finished and I've been reading the brilliance of other people's thoughts and ideas and feeling totally inadequate and I've been chewing the side of my left thumb until it's bleeding and I'm not going to mention that to anyone here because hubby hates my finger-chewing and little Katy has started doing it too and I'm held responsible for that bad habit. 

As inspiration and good grammar are concerned, that was a pretty duff start.

I'm going through one of those phases (this is the second this year) where coming here and talking to you has become a difficult thing. I'm not sure why. 

Part of it is that it feels a bit as if I have nothing to say, yet too much all at the same time. I know that you've been speaking to me recently and I'm trying to translate some of those words into something that I can talk about and clarify and develop, but I'm finding it hard to nail down. Some is deeply personal and very important to me and I need to sit for a few hours, just you and me, and try to understand. I know that you're waiting, patiently for me to do just that. 

Thank you, Lord, that the invitation to talk, to listen, to lean, to sink a bit deeper into you doesn't expire. Thank you for not taking umbrage and withdrawing your offer of help and healing just because I'm too wrapped up in things to take you up on it. 

My train of thought is still boarding at the station.

I have a myriad of reasons and excuses; the children have been on holiday, my husband is working from home, the (somewhat unwelcome) change in my routine (oh, my precious routine. I read somewhere that routine can become an idol, and I found myself wincing...) All these things have disturbed my rhythm and I'm finding it hard to get it back.

I want to scream. Or cry. Or go back to bed. 

What I should do is just lay it all down - there - and leave it with you. 

Right. Here's back to basics. Profound insight is beyond me. Intricate word play also out of my reach. Humour - no, not so much, today. So, then, what shall I say?

Someone once taught me the structure of prayer, years ago, and it sort of stuck on a basic level. 

ACTS.  Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication.

When in doubt...

Adoration

Lord, it's a beautiful day and you are everywhere. 

You are in the sunshine and shade, the birdsong and the neighbour's cat stretched black and glossy, lazy on our garden bench. 

You are in the vivid, improbable green of the trees and leaves, chlorophyll singing health and new growth and bright June potential. 

You are in the church bells chiming ten, reminding me that one of my favourite places in all the world is just down the road from here; worship is not just for Sunday, but here, now, in my back garden, at this keyboard, in that greenhouse, that shed, that kitchen. 

You are in the blue sky, the pompom white clouds, the daisies and buttercups and irrepressible clover that makes my lawn very unhealthy but oh, so soft to bare feet. 

You are in the beautiful faces of my two girls smiling at me from last year's school photo propped against the fruit bowl and you are there in the sheen of ripe pears and apples. 

You are in the wind blowing the washing on the line and you there in the fragrance of clean sheets. 

Oh, my God, you are sitting on the spare stool to my right and you have your arm around my shoulders and you care not a bit if my words are profound or well chosen or even spelled correctly; you just revel in the fact that your precious daughter wants to talk to you. 

Lord, I do. I do. I love you.

Confession

My heart sinks when I realise that I don't know where to start. 

Alright, how about yesterday when I was so angry with my oldest daughter, seven-going-on-fourteen, who sulked and grumped around on a beautiful treat-day out and did her best to spoil it for everyone? I cajoled, I encouraged, I sympathised and eventually I threatened. I said things that crushed and wounded and I'm sorry. 

I can make excuses by saying that I don't know what I'm supposed to do when faced with incessant whining and whinging and rudeness, but it's no defence. 

I was mean, and I'm sorry. 

I'm sorry for the things I thought as well; I demolished her in my head. I'm sorry for the things that are in my head that nobody knows about but you. I stoke up the negative things in my mind until they glow hot and spill over into words. 

I am full of self. I'm sorry that I turned my back on you last night when you waited for me to come and chat at bedtime; I said, in a minute, in a minute, while I checked Facebook and Twitter, then my email, then Facebook again. I played a game on my phone, read the news headlines and dipped in and out of YouTube until I was slouched so low in bed that sitting up with my journal and a pen and comparing notes with you was too much for me. Maybe I always knew it would be. 

I'm sorry. I don't understand why I do that because I know for a fact that meeting with you at the beginning and end of each day makes things so much better on every level. 

Thanksgiving

So, so much to give thanks for. 

For days like today when the view from the kitchen window is full of colour. 

For the days when it rains so that I don't have to go round with my watering can in the evening. 

For bees and garden chairs and books and notepads and ideas. 

Thank you for my girls' painted handprint pictures that freeze in time the smallness of their palm-prints for sentimental people like me. 

For the nothing-like-it feel of a small hand in yours as you walk along to school. 

For sausages for dinner and for mayonnaise, because there is no food that is not enhanced with the addition of mayonnaise. 

Thank you for your faithfulness, for your mercy, for your fun; thank you for swings and roundabouts and shouts of joy. 

Thank you that as I sit here with the windows open I can hear the sound of children in the playground at Katy's school; it's a happy sound. 

Thank you for all the blessings of our comfy existence - for education and freedom for children to play and not have to work, for running water, for plentiful food and for medicines when we need them. 

Thank you for being there, always, no questions asked, without fail, always loving, always forgiving, always loving some more, asking from me nothing and everything at the same time. 

Supplication

Right now, what's it to be? What should I ask you for in the state of mind that I'm in right now? 

Peace.

Help me to find peace whatever the circumstances, will you, Father? 

I know that true faith and trust in you would mean that I'm not at the mercy of the prevailing mood of the household, whether that mood emanates from me or anyone else. I want to depend on you so absolutely that it doesn't shake me or throw me if someone else is walking round with a thundercloud of discontent or anger. 

I want to be someone who has her own microclimate of peacefulness and calm. Is that too much to ask? 

Unlikely this side of heaven? Surely not. 

Lord, help me get a better grip of the things I say. Irritation and bitterness spill out of me sometimes and I can't stop it - or I choose not to. I talk to other people too much and to you not enough. 

I read somewhere recently one of those little illustrated ideas that do the rounds on the internet and it said:

Have you prayed about it

As much

As you've talked about it?

...and the answer is no, rarely do I pray about things anywhere near as much as I talk about them. And on the odd occasion where I put serious prayer (by my standards, I note your wry smile), I realise that prayer does change things. 

So change me, Lord. Teach me to control what goes on in my head so that I can control what comes out of my mouth. Help me to grab onto you when I want to grab someone by the throat. 

Help me cultivate calm and find peace, rather than stoking up my temper and doing the devil's job for him, for I know that he would have me constantly irritated, annoyed, criticising and lashing out. 

Above all, don't let go of me, for without your hand on me I'm in freefall. 

Don't stop talking to me. Make me listen. Remind me, call me, tug at me. 

Make me more like you. 

Amen. 

Let it be.