The race is providing some sweet time to read lots of books. It’s likely that I’ll start sharing more of my favorite quotes with you guys.
This excerpt from Guerillas of Grace by Ted Loder (which I found in In a Pit with a Lion on a Snowy Day) put to words how I have been feeling about prayer and worship lately.
” How shall I pray?
Are tears prayers, Lord?
Are screams prayers,
or groans
or sighs
or curses?
Can trembling hands be lifted to you,
or clenched fists
or the cold sweat that trickles down my back
or the cramps that knot my stomach?
Will you accept my prayers, Lord,
my real prayers,
rooted in the muck and mud and rock of my life?
and not just the pretty, cut-flower, gracefully arranged bouquet of words?
Will you accept me, Lord,
as I really am,
messed up mixture of glory and grime?”
I find myself needing to believe that it is not just in the eloquent phrases and guitar strummed songs that God hears me. I need to believe that He is worshiped by my awe at beautiful sunsets, at my questions over pain, in walking down the street, in my hugging a child. I need to believe that He hears me and intercedes for me and knows what I need even when I can’t articulate the right words. I need to know that His grace is bigger than my mess, my apathy, my doubts, my past, my shame.
Over and over again, I find that He is bigger. That He knows and sees and feels all. I find that I am too small to comprehend how or why. I find that again and again, I give Him too little credit, put Him in a tiny box. Or simply can’t escape my own.
