Sunday Thoughts: Praying and Lettering

This Sunday is going to be different.

Quiet as kept on this blog, I’ve actually been a believer in Jesus Christ since I was about nine years old. My relationship with God hasn’t always been in the best standing and was estranged and maybe turbulent for quite a few years before the pandemic started. I still prayed from time to time…I mean, if you consider arguing with God prayer.

I hate hypocrisy or fakeness so much, I rarely post on this part of my life whether on this blog or on my IG. I think the last time I posted something to my feed on IG about it, it was a word of warning in the event I ever did post anything about my faith. I just didn’t want to catch anyone off guard or to misrepresent Christ at all…assuming God might just want to keep me hidden, upstairs in the back room in the corner closet should any of His guests come over. I was just helping Him out. Anything I’ve posted since then about God has been in my IG Stories which are temporary anyway.

I still struggle with my tongue and I’m still working out my relationship with God. I would never claim to be an example of what a person of faith should look like at my age (“in the faith”). I felt in light of that tendency, I’d keep that aspect of my life quiet on here.

But one thing I do consider myself is real.

Last year, during the late summer segment of the pandemic, my relationship with God took a turn when my daughter was diagnosed with epilepsy. Not long afterward, she simultaneously started experiencing frequent mood swings that left us all traumatized after her rages. Since she was already on the more intensive side of the spectrum, this was especially devastating and exhausting.

It all drove me to my knees.

I began praying for her healing…begging God, in fact, for an immediate recovery. I experienced an immediate healing in my body in my past once while pregnant with my first child. But, most often, in my experience, believing for anything is a process. You can read that as it takes tiiiimmmmmeeeee. This time, in praying for my daughter, it was not the immediate healing I was hoping for for her. Seems it is to be the longer type where you don’t go around a problem but rather through with God.

So, these days, I argue a little less with God and I do a lot more prayerful seeking. Rather than always trying to get something from Him…healing, protection, provision, etc…I’ve just been trying to build my faith and see about what He might want from me.

I don’t know about other believers, but my inner ear has never been faultless. I’ve thought I’ve acted on hearing from God before and things go all the way wrong-at least in my estimation at the time. So I tend to be super cautious about acting on anything that comes to me. But I used to write long letters of prayer to God years ago. It was something I wanted to get back to at some point and I haven’t.

I’ve been lettering.

That, by itself carried some guilt this past year because I never could reconcile making art with any God-given purpose. It seemed like such a selfish endeavor. My career trajectory took me far enough away from it, at times, I thought maybe God frowned on the whole thing. Even with lettering…I’d reason, if I’m not lettering scripture, then is it anywhere in God’s purpose?

This book above might be good to read for those that are feeling like me.

But, I have yet to read it and I don’t have an answer to that question yet. I only became an arts integrated teacher in the last few years where I could see maybe there was some purpose in making art since it seemed to inspire the school so much. But, with my daughter’s health being such an issue at this time, what next school year holds for all that is a mystery to me that I just have to believe God will work out for everyone’s good.

What I do have today is a testimony…a few lettering skills…and a blog. Since I haven’t gotten back to writing those long letters to God yet, I thought I’d use what I do have to testify today...

I have been up early mornings and to bed late at night, many times only getting three or four hours of sleep since my daughter started experiencing seizures. She’ll get up early before it’s even light outside and request a feather massage to help her with her agitation. Feather massages make me sleepy, not her. During her massages, I’d pray that God would help her get back to sleep so I could go back to sleep and get some rest. I need it to care for her at the very least. But she wasn’t going back to sleep. Hasn’t been for the longest. I go to work from home and she is here with me. So, I worry for her safety while I’m teaching. I am able to turn off the camera to assist her, if necessary, and it’s a blessing to be able to keep my job. But, it’s just not the most ideal situation at the moment.

I don’t always understand the lessons God teaches. He seems quiet the times I’d rather hear something and He’s always talking the times I’d rather just handle it my own way. He allows things that hurt badly sometimes and I don’t understand it. But, more and more, I come to find that true believers still serve and praise Him despite the challenges they experience.

Now, in former years, experiencing tough challenges would just start an argument between me and God that’d go something like this on my side…I’m out in these streets, trying to live like a believer and this thing or that thing hurt or saddened me. I don’t want to pray and I don’t even want to listen anymore. I’m mad and I want to fight because things are not going as I expected…and I thought I was supposed to expect good. All the preachers I listen to say so. But this isn’t good. This isn’t good at all. How is everybody else experiencing all this great stuff and I get this?! Talk to the hand…✋🏾🙄 I spoke to the dry bones and they stayed dry and dead. This faith stuff doesn’t work. All it does is put a target on my back.

Yep. That was me…with God. 🤦🏾‍♀️

But, not these days.

This morning, rather than pray that God help my daughter get back to sleep during her feather massage, I just praised Him instead. If she got to sleep, great and if she didn’t, then I would follow the example of a true believer and say, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.” I’d just praise Him anyway, understanding that God has heard every prayer before the world began. He’s not deaf. He answers them as He sees fit, according to His own purpose. Who am I to argue with Him or tell Him how to be God?

And so I write this post after waking up a half hour ago, well-rested, next to a peacefully sleeping child. 🙌🏾 🙌🏾🙌🏾

The photos and the drawing were added later.

To God be all the glory.

I don’t know how the rest of the day will go when she gets up. But, I won’t despise the day of small beginnings either, know what I mean?

I just thought I’d peel back another layer of my life here on this blog today. Maybe I’ll make it recurring. We’ll see.

Have a blessed Sunday y’all.