I just didn't want to have to feel like I was fighting any more - I didn't want to have to think about what I was making, what I wanted to say - I had no words or thoughts or feelings - I felt like my prayer was blank - my prayer was not blank. Do you ever feel as if you don't know the words to pray? For me, this came because it felt like everything was just coming against me - one thing after the other - and I just shut myself down. Getting mad at the world felt pointless and feeling nothing felt better than feeling sad or pointlessly mad, so I shut myself off and just got on with going through the motions. I did my reading, wrote my assignments, went cycling, led groups, saw my friends, and life went on. But the one person you can't put a fake smile on for is God. I mean, there are no doubt some of your friends who will have noticed too, but they'll often permit your pretence for a time. I feel like God doesn't. God wants me - ALL of me - not the perfect me I pretend I am, so that others don't know I'm hurting or that I fail or that... I don't even know! Maybe I just want to look good to other people; even to myself! I want them and me to think that I have everything under control.
So given that I had shut myself down inside my head, I didn't know how to pray to the God who knew I was being fake. But then I saw this artwork on Instagram, by various people, where they make the paint more flow-y and kind of mix it but kind of don't and it does really cool things. And I wasn't really sure why, but it really appealed to me. Now, my examples above are nothing like what I wanted them to be, or the ones I saw on Instagram (unsurprisingly given my 5 minutes of learning how to do it, and cheap make-do supplies from the local shop) - but actually, that kind of became the point. As I sat down and mixed up my paints, and poured them, and mixed them, and tipped them, and watched them interact, and saw them change even as I left them to dry I found that my prayer was far from silent, and God was far from silent in response. I didn't want to keep pretending I was perfect - and I didn't want to keep thinking that I had to be! I didn't want to keep feeling like I had to fix everything that was wrong in the world to not be a failure! I wanted to live like I was free, not because I had planned and executed the most daring and elaborate prison break known to humankind - but because God made me free and loves me without any frills! And I learned that no amount of planning what I wanted the paint to do could force it to do it - I couldn't plan or foresee how the different colours would interact, just like I can't plan or foresee how the many interlocking, complex processes in this world interact. Maybe I should stop thinking that I should. And I learned that where my plans with the paint had failed, there arose a colour that would've otherwise been absent from my painting - a beauty that was only there in the "failure." Maybe I should stop calling them "failures". In my life, I try to live so that others see God through me. Sometimes I do that better than other times, but it's what I attempt. And I learned that maybe there was a God-ness (a something of God) in the instances when I stopped doing well, or looking amazing, or attempting perfection, that others would only see if I showed them those parts of me too. A colour that would be absent if everything only ever went my way. Maybe I should stop trying to present the "perfect" me. Prayer is more than words. Even more than conversation. Prayer is a relationship between myself and God that is ever-growing, ever-deepening, ever-changing, ever-the-same yet ever-new. And if words aren't enough for you right now? If words don't fit? Pray with something else! Communicate your heart and allow God to communicate God's heart back to you. Let God teach you again!
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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