Sunday, June 14, 2020

My infirmity finding my voice, in prayer.

June 14 2020,


From your mouth too God’s ears”

The older ladies used to say that in my family. Nobody would ask them what that means.  I wondered and wondered.  That ½ hour session of gossip praying that I referred to in the earlier post seemed to shed some light on that for me.

I felt talked about and I felt loved from that short session of prayer.  I could hear my father in my mind sucking his teeth at how petty women are to consider so many tiny items and I knew that my Father in heaven wasn’t doing that. It was an amazing contrast and an amazing acceptance of the beauty of the feminin observations that make up our womanly prayer life.

If this woman loved me enough to carry, even my smallest requests to the throne of Grace for consideration of the almighty.  God must love us women , more than I had earlier imagined.  Truly, truly, that dear woman loved a good many people to a very small detail of consideration and I was rebuked by my own settled antipathy to consider these small details and think them worthy of God’s consideration.  God made me a woman.  I learned a lot of what that meant that day.  I was reproved and undone and learning that my gossiping tongue could become more efficiently channeled into a prayer posture than a spouter of exaggerated self aggrandizement, either about my gossip or my not entering into the sharing of such things in my self righteousness.  God wants us to come to him with our concerns.  Our Adams might not be able to carry our concerns to the throne.  They may minimize our female observations and think them petty and inconsequential, but not Jesus.  He made us women, The 2 days of baby not pooping and the smell and consistency of the child’s vomit are just some of the things God made us to notice and care about.  We are always using our minds to solve problems.  Tiny problems and big problems.
Stitches in time that save nine are the part and parcel of our prayers and we must carry those to the throne.  There are n infinite number of differences between us and men and God made it so.  He intends us to carry our sisters to the throne of Grace to find mercy and grace to help in the time of need. 

When my heart is overwhelmed…

My heart is often overwhelmed and there is no one to notice the days of my stomach upsets and vomits.  The concerns that used to be spent upon baby’s many infirmities soon turn to my own personal care.  My nerves are spent and there is none to listen to the multitude of small and inconsequential seeming details of life as a person retired from mothering and nursing.  My breasts still ache sometimes when I hear a baby cry. Who can I talk to about these things.  The ladies prayer circle is spent with “real” concerns of people and not the hypochondriacal thoughts of women who spent their last nerves to serve their families and who are now put out to pasture as though that was th most stupid thing that anyone could do.  

God comes near and cares for us in our sense of lack of usefulness in our career choice.  God says can a woman forget her own son?  He certainly doesn’t forget our works and service of care to our children.  Our experience may not be accepted by the workforce as legitimate, but God cares.  He really does and He is coming to our rescue, whether we can find a prayer partner to help us see it or not.  Thank you Jesus!

Sunday, June 7, 2020

God's handiwork in the stars?

As we get further and further away from grandmother's handiworks, it makes me afraid that we will lose some of the awe and wonder of God's handiwork. In bygone era's there were women sitting down to watch a program or some other restful activity and their minds and hands were as busy as their feet had been, just moments earlier.  The wonder of their industry was a monument to the development of skills that could be completed by the hands while the mind was engaged in another activity.  It is so hard to develop these skills to the level of mastery that our grandmothers did.  It is a relaxing and conscience clearing thing to sit down to some knitting or crocheting and see some completed or even incompleted project getting done and growing.

The Heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament showeth his handiwork .


Perhaps we are unaware of the continued ability of God to show us his wisdom and dexterity in the sky in the daylight and especially at night.
Somewhat like a beautiful quilt and an extravagant embroidery the night sky shows us a beautiful, untouchable skilled designer and handiworker, who in his spare time threw a blanket over us of tremendous extravagance.  How can we imitate him?