my Life's Prayer

I was a young girl.  I read stories, studied history, and formed my opinions of the way life should work – the romance I would find, the adventures I would have, the people I would meet, and the differences I would make in the world.  All my “when I was younger, I…” dreams all started and ended here.

I was Cinderella.  A princess in an apron who sang while she scrubbed floors, made friends in the mice and the blue birds that shared her attic as a home, and won the Prince’s heart in glass slippers and a make-believe dress before the strike of midnight.

I was Florence Nightingale.  A woman who had strength enough to decline a life of pleasure and ease to fight dirt, death, and disease – all the while misunderstood by those she loved.  “The lady of the lamp”, walking the halls of hospitals in the night.

I was Anna, who traveled to Siam to teach the royal children in the King’s palace, teaching them of the world they didn’t know existed and introducing them to the adventure of Siam’s streets.  She won the children’s trust, and they in turn won her heart.

I was Maria.  A nun who married the man who blew the whistle she couldn’t stand, and along with their seven children sang music and climbed mountains.  She wasn’t afraid to enjoy a good puppet show, climb a tree in clothes made of bedroom curtains, or romp through fields with a suitcase or guitar.

I was Abraham Lincoln, a farm boy who won a war in gentleness and quietness.  Ted Roosevelt, a man with the lofty role as President of a nation, occasionally spending evenings looking into the starry night sky to remind himself of his size from God’s even higher perspective. 

I was Jane Eyre, who’s vocabulary was better than I ever hoped mine would be, a young woman who cherished what was good, right, and true above all feelings.

I was the literary characters of Mr. Bowditch, navigating seas; the librarian Miss Rumphius, who traveled the globe, settled down in a house by the sea, and threw lupine seeds along the roads “to make the world a more beautiful place”; the newspaper manager who risked his business and his reputation as he joined the Reverend’s challenge to ask what Jesus would do in every situation; the beautiful singer, Rachel, who took up that same challenge, befriending the least of these and putting her gifted voice to use in downtown Church services rather than on a renowned stage; the white-haired Miss Tizzy who lived on her own in the yellow house with the white picket fence, playing music with pots and pans, baking cookies, skating in trains, dressing up, and drawing pictures with the neighborhood children every day of the week.

I still read stories and study the lives of those in History.  Though now my vision of life holds more than glass slippers and pumpkin carriages, chasing rainbows and forging streams in Germany, and throwing flower seeds from a bicycle along village roads. 

My heart has grown as I have, and it now thirsts for more adventure and an insanely better destination for its day to day existence than a cruise to Siam, and a world-changing purpose greater than even the wonderful life and work of ‘the lady with the lamp’.

I want to be a woman not of any mission, but? to tell of the One who gave His all for her.  Her identity may not be found in a sparkling blue dress, or a vocation of great importance.  But maybe instead?  in the beauty and joy of a life that is content in knowing that it has a purpose far greater than its earthly vessel; the opportunity to captivate the dark, confused, chaotic, and diseased world with the love, gentleness, faithfulness, purity, and grace of God.

I still want to make the world a more beautiful place.  I still want, as I am given opportunity, to carry a lamp in the night of the lives of the others; the weary, the discouraged, the lost.

I want to be one of those the God of all nations and all times crafted me to be. 

Lord, I want to be a woman.   

You created this woman as you did the first in Eden, and you know every moment her feet will touch this earth.  She knows not what roles her name as Woman will take, be it wife or mother… or neither in that well known sense.  She may find her purposes as creator of beauty, helper, nurturer, and life giver to be carried out in ways she isn’t now suspecting.  However you deem best to use her, may her heart’s deepest desires be swallowed up in the never-ending grand adventure of knowing you.  May the light of your Word in her hand be a radiant guide for the searching.  May her heart be forever romanced, held surely and solely captive TO you and BY your unfailing love each day you grant her here, and may any earthly romance that meets her here be only a deeper leading into your own heart and your wild affection for hers.  May she know purpose lies with you – and may her heart ever and sweetly trust your daily guidance.  May eternity be stamped on her very eyes, the longing for a better country, a Heavenly one.  Be her strength and give her the moment-by-moment grace to bloom, that that those who know her might know YOU all the more because of your residing in her heart.

Oh, and His grace abounds!   For how could I, even though created a woman, even begin to fulfill the purposes He made for me to fill?  There is no beauty in me to make even a simple home more beautiful, much less to cause gardens of florae to grow in this world.  There is no light in me to hold a light for the way of another.  For a sibling, for a friend, for a child.  Yet YOU.  Father, you make all the difference, and equip me with absolutely each. and. every. need that will ever arise in my pilgrimage towards eternity’s shores.  YOUR Word will be the treasure in this jar of clay, the very beauty and rays of golden light that radiate from this once-worthless vessel. 

You bring amazing worth to this one little life.  I AM LOVED BY YOU.

My heart could ask for no better a Friend, dear Counselor and Companion of mine!

How I will need you every hour, and yet yet YET. because of your promises I can SING of how close I know you will be every moment… for every mountain to be climbed and every war to be won, every quiet evening taking in the wonder of your Grand Hand in the starry skies. 

Take these words and help me live them. 

thank you. From the depth of my heart, Jesus.  Thank you.