We are an original Prayer

What a creative, colorful, living, vibrant God we have the chance to fly, dance, draw, decorate, write, move, sing and compose our way through this life with!

What if prayer didn't look the same over and over, yet meant more to us - to Him?

And it became a breathing, best-friendship of Heaven-meets-Earth proportions?

What if we relaxed, rested in, and counted as holy and sacred the truth that He made us the way we are-each of us unique glimmers of His all-engulfing layers of glorious personalities, ideas, gifts, looks...rays of light, each different but reflecting the same Son? Beautifying the world as He intended.

Not conforming, not even to being like other "Christians," but being transformed by the renewing of our minds-the way we are called to think, dream, become!

I'm not Leonard Ravenhill, or Keith Green, or Mother Teresa. I'm no Joni Mitchell or Beatrix Potter or Jane Austin. I'm ME. And I'm not even just what I've always allowed myself to be. There are facets of my deepest, truest self, hidden in Christ, yet to be released from the cage of conformity and comparison. Flickers of light He assigned to just me, that will best reflect the parts of Him I am responsible to represent to the world.

There's a reason I come alive when I decorate, or write a song, or run a race or listen to moving violin pieces. There's a reason I am drawn to certain books, colors, clothing. There's a reason I have a witty, upbeat personality, but can also come down ten levels into deep escape and imagination. I can hide behind a world of fiction and writing for hours, obsessed and on fire with creating stories, characters, places, conversations that would have never existed unless I put them on my own pages. You should see my imagination! Wild.

There's a reason that sometimes sitting on the floor in a small, closed room doesn't always feel natural or prayerful. Complacency? Not always. Holy boredom? Likely. God loves to be with me in those "prayer closet" moments. (Light the candle, turn on the worship music, hand me a highlighter for my bible-got that part!) And, He also likes to accompany me to the thrift store, enjoy a quiet spot by the lake with me, run with me, give me dreams and visions...show up in unlikely faces of broken, beautiful people that I only found because He found me first.

We separate who we are from "Christianity" or spirituality, prayer, etc. We will always be at war within, until we embrace the beauty of the blend. When we just are -when we live, act, work, love, create, enjoy...the way He made us to, we are offering up something of high value; authenticity- an offering he can recognize because He authored it and can, and does inhabit it.

We don't have to limit ourselves or be afraid of our own faces reflected in the water. We can stop running from our own shadows.

He made me special. To shy away from that is to neglect my full purpose as Abba's child, and denies Him the delight of watching the brilliant obedience of an authentically lived life- the one He had in mind all along. I am an original prayer; a living sacrifice.