Praying Without Cease

I've never been comfortable blogging about my faith. I read many wonderful and inspiring blogs written by Christian women...Evlogia, A Path Made Straight, Holy Experience... In a way I long for this blog to be as inspiring and wonderful. Lets face it, I long to be as inspiring and wonderful. But therein lies my problem. I long for it too much. And I have a difficult time, especially in this impersonal space, drawing a line between my faith and what it means to me and my faith and what it should mean to you, if that makes sense. Between sharing my heartfelt beliefs and shoving those beliefs down your throat. I also have a hard time telling the difference between heartfelt sharing of my beliefs and this very important part of my life, and...well...and vanity for lack of a better word.

I am a vain creature. Let's get that out there right from the get-go. I am as vain in my strengths as I am in my weaknesses. It is truly a sight to behold at times. And I have long struggled to keep my vanity from encroaching on this space. And so something very central in my life gets left out.

It seems wrong, however. And so I have been struggling lately.

I don't know if this means I will begin to blog about my beliefs and that part of my life, because really, it is all parts of my life in a way. Maybe I will find that balance. Where I can talk about it without being pushy, or unloving, or prideful.... It seems a tall order at the moment. But it also seems dishonest to leave it out so blatantly.

Who would I be without my unwavering belief in the ultimate control and goodness of an almighty God? Without my doubtless knowledge of having been redeemed and saved by the cross? Its the kind of thing that changes your outlook, for sure. It is central to everything I do and am. Honestly I hardly make sense without it.

I CAN share this bit of struggle:

Recently Josh brought up a clock his grandfather made from storage. It's a rather big one, that honestly I've never had much love for. But it sings the hours and Zeke has been so obsessed with the giant clock tower downtown we thought he'd get a kick out of it. I decided, since it would be constantly singing and reminding me, I would try to get into the habit of praying every hour as it chimed. "Praying without cease" if you will. I'll admit I've been rather enfatuated with the idea since I was a teenage and read Salinger's Franny and Zooey.

Now, I try, rather unsuccessfully, to spend time every afternoon in devoted prayer and bible reading. Josh and I try, also rather unsuccessfully, to read My Utmost for His Highest every evening. I'd rather not dwell on our exact success rates in this, they waver quite a bit but they are never all that impressive. Inserting God into our daily life, outside of mealtime prayers, has never been an easy habit for me and I thought this might help.

And praying with the chimes has actually been a really easy habit, but with a surprising effect. I've honestly hated it. First off, that clock chimes every 15 minutes, not every hour. Great, I at first thought, to be reminded of the Lord so often. But when I realized how often that thing chimed right in the middle of me being impatient with my children, or unforgiving to Josh, or unfair to a friend, or, or, or. Oh my the guilt. I started swearing to myself, ok, for 15 minutes...just for the next 15 minutes I wont do ANYTHING to be ashamed about.

I havent succeeded yet.

It's all been rather disheartening. And humbling. And maybe, after all, that is the point. The simple Jesus prayer, "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner" has never meant so much to me. Even every 15 minutes is not apparently enough for this sinner. It hasnt been what I expected from it. I thought, so silly now that I dont even want to admit it, that I would feel BETTER about myself. How wonderfully wrong I was. I am going to keep it up.