A sacred space

I spoke with a Spiritual Director last week. Her name is Alexis.
I had signed up to attend her workshop titled Sacred Spaces.
Sacred Spaces is about letting yourself experience God in new and different ways.
It's also about learning to find God in the mundane and ordinary lives we all lead.

There were different stations set up around the room.
At each station there were instructions to read or pictures to look at or music to listen to and finally a Youtube video to watch.
Also paper and pens were provided to write down any notes or thoughts or feelings or answers.
These were the names of the individual stations-

* Praying through Images
* Lectio Divina
* The Daily Examen
* Soul Assessment

We were given one hour to complete all stations and then were told we would discuss what we learned about ourselves when everyone was finished.
I finished early so I walked over to Alexis and asked her if I could discuss something with her.

I asked her was she a counselor. She replied "No. I am a Spiritual Director" and I felt a tingle go up my spine. I had wanted to find a Spiritual Director but didn't know where to look or what they would cost. (Pretty sure my insurance won't cover that.)
So then I asked her if I could share with her a problem I've been having lately and she said Yes.

I told her about my history of anxiety and depression. I told her about finally being prescribed medication and I told her how good I've been feeling too, no anxiety or sadness.
But what I also told her was that I was having a lot of difficulty with praying now because the worrying had stopped. I'd noticed that my brain was so much calmer and I didn't feel the need to reach out in anxiety fueled prayer anymore. How do you pray when you're not worried?

For years the anxiety drove me to my knees. It drove me crazy and it made me worry incessantly about stuff I had no business worrying about. And every single morning I would greet the day with a prayer on my lips and an anxious pounding heart and I would head straight to my chair and read devotional after devotional after devotional. I would write in my gratitude journal all the things I was grateful for. I would get out my prayer calendar with it's daily prompt suggestion, quickly rattle off that prayer suggestion to God and then I would start to pray for the people I know who needed extra prayer-
My friend Amy who is still battling colon cancer, my son to find Jesus and possibly a girlfriend too if Jesus wasn't too busy...my husband and his job, my crabby ass sister, my children and grandchildren.
But the one thing I never did was Let Go of any of the anxiety or worry that plagued me.
I carried it with me everywhere.
It wasn't until my medication shut off that part of my brain that I realized I wasn't really praying for my friends and family everyday.  It was more like I was begging Jesus not to take them away.
My anxiety and depression kept driving me in to the arms of Jesus but I never allowed Him take it from me. It was as if I was saying-
 "Here God, You handle this, I'm afraid but I'll just keep pestering you and repeatedly begging you to keep handling it. Are You still handling this Jesus? Want I should keep begging You for favors? Cuz I'm still afraid."

So Alexis tells me this-
Sit in your morning chair. Invite Jesus in. Let Him hold you- imagine His arms enfolding you in the quiet and the stillness of the morning. Sit with Him. Just sit with Him in the silence.
Imagine that you are now in a new season of your life. Actively look at it.
Engage with Jesus in it.
Maybe He is trying to tell you that it's time for you to move on from the distraction of the anxiety, that a calmer way, a calmer path exists for you now.
She asks me what Bible verse did I read and what did I write at the Lectio Divina station and here is what I had read and written down BEFORE I had even spoken with Alexis-
God goes before me and follows after me whether I see it or not... in response to Exodus 13:17-22.

She then asked what image I had chosen for the Praying through Images station.
I had selected a picture of fog with trees fading away in the distance to nothing but white.
And again she asks me what did I write in response to that prompt.
My answer?
The fog and trees are on an unknown road that leads to?  Where?? The picture fades away. 
It is silent here and calming and there is no noise. There is an emptiness here but there is beauty in that silence.

In my brain I think to myself that truer words were never spoken. Or written.
There is  indeed something wonderful and calming about the stillness I encounter now.
There is somehow, something healing in the silence.
With her suggestions I believe that perhaps I could quiet myself and just let the words come, that praying, for me, from now on doesn't mean begging for what I want or keeping my fists clenched while pleading with God to do what I keep telling Him to do.
Perhaps praying could now be me sitting silently in my chair and letting God speak to me.
How marvelous will that be? I can hardly wait to try it.

God, still my noisy heart,
Quiet my wandering thoughts.
Help me to sit in this moment,
Let go of my distractedness,
And learn from my inner chaos,
To create within me a place of prayer.
~Christine Sine

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly