Far from Sweet and Easy

I’ve missed a few days of praying.  Well, of writing my prayers out on this blog.  Its been a few days of intense emotions and its been very, very busy.  In this space there have been prayers for church.  A lot of them. Prayers for my daughters.  A lot of them.  Prayers for my mom, my dad.  A lot of them.  And then I took a couple shifts at a show home and while that’s not emotionally taxing (other than having to be really excited about houses…), I did wear heels and that made me extra tired…..

I am also preparing to lead a retreat this weekend for some women at church.  I love what we are talking about and will probably write about it in the near future.  And today I read this in a book we are looking at and it pretty much expressed what my heart has been doing.  For my beautiful church, for my beautiful daughters, for my beautiful momma and dad.

“Prayer is far from sweet and easy.  Being the expression of our greatest love, it does not keep pain away from us.  Instead, it makes us suffer more since our love for  God is a love for a suffering God and our entering into God’s intimacy is an entering in to the intimacy where all of human suffering is embraced in divine compassion.  To the degree that our prayer has become the prayer of our heart we will love more and suffer more, we will see more light and more darkness, more grace and more sin, more of God and more of humanity.”                                                           Henri Nouwen from Reaching Out