Okay, Okay. I know I said this book is about you, but first I need to give you a little background about my own experience. Why? Because you need to know I’ve really struggled to learn these life lessons. I’m guessing you’ve had similar struggles if you’ve ever tried to be even remotely faithful in your prayer life. And if you’re new to the whole concept of prayer, I hope you’ll discover at least a glimmer of inspiration to start making prayer as much a part of your every day life as breathing, starting today.
The first time I learned about having a personal prayer life happened on my first trip to church camp. I think I was in the fourth grade, so I must have been around nine or ten years old. Nunny Cha-Ha was a Southern Baptist summer camp for girls in Oklahoma. If you and I were having this discussion face to face, at this point I would break into song, serenading you with the Nunny Cha Ha camp song. After nearly half a century, I still remember that goofy little jingle. I’ll spare us both the embarrassment and move along.
The focus of that week was “learning how to listen to the voice of God” in what was dubbed “My Quiet Time with God.” You have to admire the camp leaders’ intent, but let’s be honest. Most pre-adolescents are clueless about such deeply spiritual goals, let alone the discipline to follow through on a daily basis. Still, good little camperettes that we were, we trekked across the campground after our counselors told us to find our “special place” to meet with God each day.
My special place was beneath a big tree. Like the infamous land-run settlers of Oklahoma’s colorful history, I staked out the perfect location. I busily cleared the dirt beneath my tree and lined it with little rocks, fashioned a cross out of two twigs, stuck it in the ground near the tree, and declared that it was good. I wiped my hands on my madras Bermudas, then plopped down, cross-legged on the dirt, ready to meet God. For an hour. One very long hour. Just me and God. God and me. Every single day of camp. Did I mention these quiet times were supposed to last an entire hour? I tried. Really I did.
“Now I lay me down to sleep . . . ”
No. Wait. That’s a prayer for babies. I can surely do better than that. Ah! I’ve got it! The Lord’s Prayer! Much more grown-up. So I closed my eyes and recited the familiar words.
“Our Father, Who art in heaven . . .”
Art? I like art. I hope we get to paint this week. Maybe some watercolor . . .
“Hallowed by Thy name.”
I’ve never liked my name. Diane. It’s just so plain. Why couldn’t Mom and Dad have named me Veronica? Or Tabitha? Or Maria—like Maria Von Trapp in The Sound of Music. Oh my gosh, I love that movie!
“Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done . . . ”
Be done, be done, be done . . . will this Quiet Time ever BE DONE? I’m sooooo bored! B-O-R-E-D. BORED! BORED! BORED!
“On earth as it is in Heaven.”
I wonder if Julie Andrews and I will be friends in heaven. I loved her in Mary Poppins. I really liked that bag of hers. All that stuff just kept coming out.
“Give us this day, our daily bread . . . ”
I’m so hungry, I could puke. I sure hope they don’t have Sloppy Joes today. Those were gross. Maybe we’ll have hot dogs. I’ll take mine with ketchup, no mustard. I hate mustard.
“And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
What the heck is a trespass anyway? And why should I care if someone tresses past me?
“And lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil . . . ”
I am so tempted to short-sheet Sally’s bed. That would serve her right for stealing the top bunk.
“For Thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.”
This hour feels like forever. FOR-E-VERRRR.
Amen.
There. I prayed. Now what?
I thumbed through my Bible, not sure what to look for. Then I remembered something about confession, so I called up all the sins I could think of. I asked God’s forgiveness for being jealous of my perfect sister. I apologized for spending part of my tithe money on the new Monkees album. And I confessed my bad attitude about having to sit in the dirt and pray for a whole stinkin’ hour when I ’d rather be swimming. This last offense served to usher in a repeat practice I would later dub Prayer Guilt. In the years to come I would amass vast reservoirs of this guilt. But on that hot summer’s day long ago at Camp Nunny Cha Ha, I simply shrugged it off as I raced toward the mess hall.
As I mentioned earlier, I grew up in church. We lived in the suburbs but attended a large metropolitan church in the heart of downtown Tulsa. And when I say we attended, I mean that we were there Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday evening, and an occasional Friday night and/or Saturday for socials, choir rehearsals, banquets, revivals, or mission endeavors. We never missed. I’m pretty sure my parents borrowed their church attendance creed from postal workers because neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night could keep us from driving twenty-something miles to and from our beloved church.
Not that I minded. I loved going to church. All my best friends were there. We loved hanging out in that mammoth old building that occupied an entire city block. In fact, my earliest crushes were on boys at church. Granted, some of them never even knew I existed, but that’s beside the point. I could tune out every word of the sermon and spend the better part of the church service hour just staring across the balcony at Marcus. Then Rod. Then Steve. Oh yeah. Steve . . .
But somewhere along the line, I began to equate church attendance with being “spiritual.” And since we never missed, I figured I was quite the spiritual girl. Each week when I turned in my offering envelope, I checked off all those little boxes to show that I’d read my Bible, memorized a verse of scripture, prayed, gave an offering and attended worship service. For which I was awarded stars on a chart gracing our Sunday school door. That was me—Chrissy Christian, with the perfect attendance record to prove it.
And let’s not overlook the Bible. Over the years I was given a series of different Bibles. I loved having my own Bible with my name stamped in gold right there on the front cover. I had Bibles illustrated with color pictures of favorite Bible stories. Others with red letters to represent any words that came out of Jesus’ mouth. Soft leather Bibles. Hardcover Bibles with spines that eventually cracked. Tiny New Testaments to slip into my purse. Even a far-out, groovy edition in the ‘60s with psychedelic lettering on the front. Years later, when I grew up and started going to more in-depth Bible studies, it was all about the underlining, highlighting, and even an elaborate system of shading with colored pencils those passages we studied in class. My favorite Bible was one I purchased about fifteen years ago. Soft brown leather exterior with extra-wide margins on each page that gave me plenty of room to make notes or jot down questions. Yes, that’s me—Bible Barbie.
Amidst all the camp experiences, years of faithfully attending church every time the doors were open, and collecting all kinds of Bibles, I know we must have studied prayer. I’m sure many a Sunday school lesson addressed the subject. From an early age we learned to pray out loud in class. We were uncomfortable doing it, but we quickly learned that the shorter the prayer, the faster we’d get out of class. Thank-you- God-for-this-day-and-bless-the-missionaries-and-heal-the-sick- amen. And we were outta there!
Going Through the Motions
Still, as the years drifted by, for me it was all about the mechanics of prayer and Bible study and going to church. My motivations were all wrong, of course. But if I’m completely honest, I have to admit that very little seemed to sink in. I was in full-blown spoon-feed mode. I was much too caught up in playing the part of a Christian to be concerned with the depth of my spiritual life. Occasionally a crisis would pop up on the horizon, and I would pray as hard as I could. But God wasn’t fooled by my emergency-mode prayers. I could almost imagine Him saying, “How come you never talk to Me unless you’re in some kind of trouble?” A valid point, considering I’d basically ignored Him Monday
through Saturday. Okay, and most of Sunday too.
During my college years, I went through some rough waters. I turned my back on God and decided to have some fun. I’m not going to share my dirty laundry and tell you any of the juicy details. Not gonna happen. Let’s just say I came to a fork in the road and chose the road more traveled. Not proud of it, but there it is. As I look back on those years, I have plenty of regrets. But God’s amazing grace was there waiting for me when I finally grew up and willingly “put away childish things” (1 Corinthians 13:11b, NKJV).
A few years down the road, God blessed me with the most patient and wonderful husband on the face of the earth. Not only is Ken my husband, he’s my best friend. We have two kids I could brag on ad nauseam. Hannah and Ben are the joy of our lives, and we couldn’t be more proud of them.
Entwined in those early years of marriage and starting a family, Ken finished seminary and began his ministerial career at a large church in Naples, Florida. We were there for five incredible years before leaving to serve at a church just three hours north in the St. Petersburg/Clearwater area. I’d always dreamed of living near the beach, and initially we loved living in the Sunshine State. We also loved the congregations and fellow staff members and their families.
A Spiritual Detour
But Ken’s tenure in church ministry didn’t end on a very happy note. Years after the fact, it’s easy to look back and see the hand of God through that long journey. But at the time? Not so much. Ken handled the whole situation with complete integrity and character. I’d always known he was an incredible man, but never before had I realized what a godly man he was. Like the biblical story of Daniel, Ken came through the fire, which didn’t destroy him but only made him stronger. I was so proud of him. I still am.
I’d like to tell you Ken’s wife (that would be me) came through the same fire with unfathomable grace, but that would be a lie. A great big fat whale of a lie. I was a train wreck, both emotionally and spiritually. I wasn’t angry at God, but my relationship with Him got caught in the undertow. For a season I wanted nothing to do with church. I’d had enough church to last a lifetime, thank you very much.
And as the months drifted by, I became more and more cynical about anything and everything remotely “Christian.” I got angry at pompous television preachers and their ridiculous gimmickry, not to mention their creepy wives with big, big hair and clown-like make-up. I judged many of them as outright frauds. (For the record, time would reveal several of these “ministers” were nothing more than con artists.)
I also became critical of what I called the “merchandising” of Christianity—a market saturated with WWJD wrist bands, “Jesus Loves Me” coffee mugs, Prayer of Jabez coasters, and John 3:16 bumper stickers. (In the spirit of complete transparency, I should probably mention a line of products my husband suggested we merchandise upon hearing I had sold the book you now hold in your hands. He came up with rainworthy Slacker Slickers, comfy Slacker Slippers, tasty Slacker Crackers (unleavened, of course), and even a companion prayer journal we’d call the Slacker Prayer Packer. Well, you get the idea. Coming soon to a flea market near you.)
Then God opened the door for us to move to Tennessee, something I’d wanted to do for several years. My sister and her family lived near Nashville, and we couldn’t wait to move there. We found a beautiful house surrounded by an acre and a half of wooded trees. I felt at home, back in a place that enjoyed all four seasons instead of just one.
Let me backtrack for a moment. There’s an old saying that goes, “Whenever one door closes, another one opens.” Then there’s the Christianese version that says, “When God closes a door, He always opens a window.” Those kinds of saccharine-sweet clichés normally gag me. But I have to say that we are living proof of this particular concept.
In what can only be considered an outright miracle, God provided an income for us after Ken lost his job at our church in Florida. Ken had been mentoring a church member who had created a company that provided Internet filtering for computers, providing a way to block pornography. When Remington decided he didn’t want to pursue the day-to-day demands his new company required, he literally offered the company to Ken, free and clear, if he wanted it. Cynic that I was at the time, even I could see that God had provided for us in a bold and miraculous way. Ken was able to work from our home, which allowed him to stay closely involved during our kids’ teen years. When you serve on a church staff, especially large metropolitan churches, you rarely have an evening at home with the family. This was a welcomed change that Ken and the kids and I loved.
So there we were—handed a dream job on a silver platter, living in a place we loved, thrilled to have Ken at home with us, and finally available to share in every fraction of our family life again. Sounds like heaven on earth, right? Then why was I still so miserable?
To help us get on our feet financially while Ken’s company began to grow, I took a job those first couple of years in Tennessee. It was a good job in a Christian company where I worked alongside some wonderful people. But I hadn’t worked outside the home for more than fifteen years, and I felt completely suffocated. I packed on a hefty number of unwanted pounds, which only added to my misery. And I noticed a snarky attitude creeping into every pore of my being. Not since the dark days of peri-menopause had I known such consuming angst and frustration. I was such a mess, I cried myself to sleep on December 31, 1999, while the rest of the world celebrated the arrival of a new millennium.
I couldn’t seem to shake the depression. I have no idea how Ken put up with me during those years. I butted heads constantly with our daughter and felt a growing distance with our son. But I knew no one was to blame but me. They were just kids—teenagers trying out their wings of independence.
Now, when I read back through my journals of those rocky times, I wonder why my family didn’t just put me in a strait- jacket and check me into someplace called Sunnydale or Happy Hills. Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away.
What’s especially peculiar to me as I think back on this time in my life is the fact that I never stopped to realize my depression and frustration might stem from a spiritual problem. I’ve told you before I’ve been a Christian almost my entire life. I’d studied the Bible and attended church and all those other things good Christians do. But none of it seemed to matter anymore.
In fact, I’ll admit to you here and now, I was extremely bitter. Bitter on so many different levels in so many different areas of my life. It was eating me alive. I recently heard someone call bitterness a self-imposed prison cell. I was not only locked behind bars in my self-imposed prison, I had set up housekeeping there. I had furnished my cell with resentment, regret, jealousy, failure, and pure, high-octane bitterness.
I was also beginning to wonder where God was in all of this. Yes, I’d seen His hand in our move to Tennessee and the job He’d provided for Ken. But my attempts at prayer seemed to bounce off the ceiling. And please—don’t quote me those lines from Footprints in the Sand or the lyrics of songs of faith. I’ve sung them all, I’ve memorized the verses, and I know the facts. I just couldn’t understand why God wasn’t there for me when in my heart I knew He was supposed to be.
I was crying to the LORD with my voiceAnd He answered me from His holy mountain
—PSALM 3:4, NASB