Ere you left your room this morning....

Charley Pride on 6Lyrics.com

I should admit, that for too long, I have been reluctant to pray. I can say regular prayers, bless the food, pray at the end of the day with my family, pary with friends if they ask me to, but the prayers that mean the most, the ones that hand over a piece of your soul in such humble entreaties? I sort of stopped those a very long time ago. I could count on one hand ( and have fingers left over)the times I have laid myself at His feet and cried for His help in the last 15 years or so.
I know when I stopped praying like that, it was when my life was so out of my hands, when things kept slamming into me and breaking me a little bit more ever day. I thought I saw that God knew me, I believe He does and I also have never stopped believing that He loves me. I thought I saw that HE has control of my life and although I have the right and freedm to choose, ultimately if HE thinks I need something, I get it, be that a trial to test my strength or challenge my faith, or a blessing to enrich my life and show me that all is well.
I stopped feeling that I should go to Him and just let it go, I stopped thinking that there was any point to my pleading and crying, to asking and trying to show Him what I wanted from my life. If I needed it and He thought I should have it..it'd come, what's to ask??
I have been in Primary at church for a while, teaching the babies and some older kids, singing and listening and for the most part enjoying. Lately that has been hard for me, in my battles against adversity and the true evils of this world that have been threatening to swallow my girl and my heart whole, I have felt utterly depleted in the spiritual stakes. Empty me.
HAve you ever tried to teach the good things when you have forgotten there are any?
There are no excuses and no chances to lay the blame on anyone else for this, I am not stupid, I can read, I have all the resources at my fingertips to recharge my spiritual batteries, my husband even has a website that he works on that is so overflowing with marvellous and uplifting stories and scriptures, I only have to click and could be so enveloped in good things that I would immediately be uplifted, but...yeah you know, feed me a grape. I am weary. I am so pathetically lame at the moment that I need spoon feeding marvellous things. Let me sit and uplift me, just don't ask me to make any kind of effort because. I. am. so. tired.
So, a week or two ago, I had a word with the primary president and said "Adele, I am weary, I am so running on empty I can't tell you...please let me go and sit with the grown ups and just listen for a bit, let me hear some good things. Please."
This is not really what we should do, we are encouraged to serve and to give, which is a good thing. I just feel a little selfish right now and maybe the day will come ( like today perhaps) when I feel that I should have found a way other than let the babies down, that I should have put others before myself.
Anyway, Adele loves me and she tod me to go, to enjoy and to listen. She didn't hand me the worries of who would teach my class of 3 year olds, she didn't tut and sigh, she just said " yes, go and do what you need to do"
I went and I did and it didn't take me any time at all to see why I had to be with the grown ups today.
We had a lesson about ...well it doesn't matter what it was about, what happened was this. Something was said that made me think. Ta -Da...great lesson, that's what it's all about.
I suddenly knew where I have been going wrong all these years. I have assumed that the Lord doesn't really care. That amazes me. I thought I knew He does, I thought I really knew He does. Today I realised, as clearly as if someone had smacked me hard between the eyes, that He truly and completely loves me and that there will never, ever be a time when he rolls his eyes because I have come to ask Him to help me.
My heart has been breaking over my girl, I am sadder than I can express that she does not truly believe that I love her. I am frustrated that she continues to not trust me or believe that if she were to let me, I could help her.
( anyone getting the parallel here?)
When she turned up at my house that one night at 1am, when she fell on the floor completely broken and weeping, when she sobbed and begged me to help her because she simply cannot stand to feel this way another day. My heart sang.
She was here, she really knew that I can help her, she believed that I love her and will do everything in my power to hep her and all I needed, all I was waiting for was for her to come to me and ask, meaning it.
The many times she has yelled and said she is sorry, help her then, those request flew over the top of my head, she didn't mean it, I didn't feel it, she had to go on her way. There was nothing I could do.
I knew when she was sincere. The moment she came to me, with real intent, I was so overwhelmed with relief that I dropped to my knees too. Nothing has been too hard, to tiring, too difficult to do for this girl, since that night. We have done things together, we have filled in forms and made phone calls, we have made appointments and we have spent time together and it has been a joy ( mostly)
She has her appointment on friday to see the mental health team and I have every hope that her jourmey to recovery has already begun and as long as she stays as determined as she is now, she will win her fight.
I will stay right with her doing everything she needs me to do for as long as she wants me to do it. This is all her call. If she turns away and chooses to turn her back, I will have to allow her to do that and it will break my heart. I will never tire of hearing her voice when she comes to me with her hear open and ready to hear what I have to say, I will never roll my eyes when she comes to me with a question that she really needs the answer to.
I will continue to feel exasperated when she asks the same things over and over again and then keeps rattling on without listening to the answer, she will continue to drive me crazy when she asks what to do and when I tell her or advise her she says that too hard and she is going to do what is easier and more fun. I will be right here when she comes back and says that maybe I was right and can I help her after all.
I have always known what she likes and also, what she needs, I couldn't give it to her though, until I was sure that she wanted it and knew that she needed it.
I am nowhere near as compassionate and loving as the Lord, I don't know all the asnwers, I have all the weaknesses and frailties of humanity. If I can feel this way towards my child, how much more understanding does the Lord have for me? How could He be anything but thrilled when I come to him on my bended and weary knees to just tell him that I cannot stand to feel this way anymore and ask Him what I should do? I don't believe He ever tires of hearing from me when I am sincere and ready to hear what He needs me to know. I forgot that and today, sitting with the grown ups I was reminded. I wasn't wrong to ask for that.
I didn't feel good when a little boy said " Hey! Mister 'Ellen! Why you didn't come in our church today?" and his mum said he says he doesn't want to come to church when Mister 'Ellen isn't there. I felt even crummier when mum told me all the little baby ones cried when I wasn't there. I just know that the one hour I sat with the grown ups and I listened and actually heard, it was the very best thing for me.
I am ready to pray again. Properly. I believe that I will be heard and that the angels and my Heavenly Father will be as happy to hear what I have to say as I was when my girl cried to me that she needed my help and I knew that she believed I loved her.

"Oh how praying rests the weary,
Prayer will turn the night to day,
So, when life gets dark and dreary,
don't forget to pray"