Today, I hopped on Facebook and saw on two different pages, hearts rendered by pain. They needed prayer, and neither was exactly asking for it. I thought back to two years ago when I decided there would always be food in my classroom because a student ate poptarts and ran away for two days. I knew the last food I knew he ate, was from my room.
I used to type, “May I pray with you today?” and the petitions came daily. For a time, it was part of my social media ministry and hearing their anguish made me pause. Was this like the poptarts? Did I need to decide I needed to do this because it simply needed to be baseline?
Part of me didn’t want to restart, because I already feel like I’m doing, doing, doing. We started teaching a new curriculum. I’m teaching a new grade. Additionally, I’m studying for national boards. Add monitoring two children in graduate school and two in high school, one applying to college, one applying for high school and preparing for confirmation, and a son who is a sophomore, doing cross country and studying for confirmation as well, and I feel tapped out. How can I put in when I feel so empty?
In Creative Writing class today, I talked about how you can’t pour out what you haven’t put in, in an attempt to encourage students to read. I looked at my schedule. To pray for others deliberately, like supplying students with snacks, requires discipline work on my part.
The academic reality likewise is true in the spiritual realm. You can’t give what you have not allowed yourself to receive. I needed an infusion of grace and to immerse myself in the presence of Christ. I can’t feed others spiritually the bread I do not consume. So I needed to go to adoration more so as to better pray for people as they need, and as I should.
My Catholic Readers group is reading, “Could You Not Watch With Me for One Hour?” I’ve carried that book around for two weeks without cracking it. So I need to open that book and let myself steep in the wisdom of those words.
Likewise, I talked to my students about needing to decide to write even if you don’t feel like it. So I’m slogging through that stupid word count, searching for the right imagery, the right thoughts to convey what could be boiled down to a Nike commercial for my prayer life. “Just do it!” Sherry.
Typing the words feels surprisingly easy. Now I wait to see who asks, and hope that those who cried out, see it and do. I’ll pray for them anyway. Every day, begin again. Life is about knowing there will be storms and sufferings, strugglings and scars, but there is always more to do, more to discover, more to love, more who need prayer. “Pray without ceasing.” floats to my head. We need all of Heaven to help us, to pray when we cannot, when we will not, when we are lost.
In adoration this morning for only a few minutes, I thought of all of Heaven trying to pick up the slack for all of us slackers, and inviting us to push beyond what is comfortable and easy, to pray from the heart to the Heart of all things. “Help. Help. Help.” I thought, for this friend, for that one, for the marriage of a friend I know is being tested, for the loneliness of one who just lost her husband, and that of one who longs for a relationship that lasts decades.
“Help. Help. Help.” for the students who wander the halls, for the ones who don’t listen, for the ones who take a twenty minute bathroom break on the first day. “Help. Help. Help.” for all the stupid things like plumbing and painting and student loans and cars, commutes, schedules, and laundry. “Help. Help. Help.” because we’re weak and needy and need God. The list goes on. Needs float up into the heart one after another until I recognize, all I’m doing is asking.
“Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” for all the blessings of marriage, children, education, and jobs. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” for the students, especially the hard ones. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” for all the teachers, for the rooms, for the gifts of each day; for the fading garden with tomatoes that linger. “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.” for all the promise of my children’s hopes and aspirations. I can see them trying to launch. I am praying for the Holy Spirit to lift them.
“Thank you for being here and letting me come here and speedround pray. Thank you for inviting me to pray.” Thank you for indulging my heart and mind –even if today, I could not last one hour.
But the praying left me feeling fuller than when I started. God always outdoes us and multiplies our efforts even if we donot recognize it until after we begin passing out the meal to others.
I look at my schedule and decide, tomorrow, it will be for longer.
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