My son has always enjoyed surreal paintings, so he imitated a famous melting clock painting from Salvador Dali. All he did was sketch a clock on a piece of paper and fold the paper over a table!
Here is the painting my son was imitating:
Here is a coloring page of this painting, which is called “The Persistence of Memory”:
Here is a Melting Clock Printable Craft:
Here is an interactive website for “The Persistence of Memory”:
A couple of days ago as I was praying, a fog came over my mind. I had to pace the floor and pray out loud just to keep my mind focused. Through sheer determination, I continued praying until I came to the very end. As soon as I was finished, the fog lifted, and my mind was clear. Don’t tell me prayer isn’t like doing battle.
I’ve been a prayer warrior for six years now. There was only one day that I forgot to pray. (I’m not talking about the short prayers throughout the day, but a chunk of time set aside for prayer.) I was at Cub Scout camp, and I hadn’t slept hardly at all. During my normal time of prayer in the morning, I was required to do other things. By the next day, I had the shocked feeling that I had forgotten to pray the day before.
If you know me and prayer, you know what a disaster this was to me. My prayers move mountains. My prayers save souls. My prayers sustain people in time of need. I felt that I had let down the over 100 people that I pray for. I am NOT boasting. Many times I have wanted to be rid of this burden. Like during the whole slander issue. I felt like the people who I had been praying for were vicious dogs attacking me, and I just wanted push the dogs out with my foot and slam the door shut. I wanted to be done.
During those days right after the slander, I prayed for my family and close friends. I prayed for the people in the church of the Czech Republic, because I feel a huge spiritual burden for them. I prayed for the pastor that cried when I told him I had prayed for him every day for years, and that I would continue to do so. (His wife also cried, and I said to them, “Far be it from me to sin against the Lord by ceasing to pray for you.”) In other words, I prayed for the people that were grateful. Then I felt apathy. I didn’t feel like praying. I said, “God, only You know who has been prayed for and who hasn’t. Bring the people to mind that I need to pray for, and then I want to be done.”
So an image of a person came to me, and I prayed for that person. I continued this way for maybe 20 people. Then I asked God if there was anyone else He wanted me to pray for. I waited. A couple from church came to my mind. I prayed for them. Then it was over. Instead of taking a huge amount of time, it only took about 10 minutes. (This is why I’m telling you. If you don’t want to commit to praying for an hour or whatever, for sure you can pray for 10 minutes for whoever God brings to your mind. This is not hard, and it is quite fulfilling.)
That’s how I got through those days when I didn’t care; when I felt total apathy. Apathy scares me more than anger, because if I’m angry, then I can pray with passion, because I can beg God to help me. But if I feel apathy, my heart isn’t in it. “The effectual fervent prayer” is what makes a difference, not “the perfunctory prayer done in apathy.”
If you want to know my entire journey through prayer, I have many prayer articles on my website. They were the foundation of my website. Before I even started writing, I got on my knees and asked God what He wanted me to write for my website. Five prayer articles came out. Those five prayer articles have spread like wildfire: people have asked me permission to use them for women’s Bible studies, and other people have asked to print them on their websites and blogs. I’ve gotten more syndicated hits on those articles from article directories than any other articles I’ve written. I’ve been floored at the response. I wept as I wrote those articles, just remembering God’s faithfulness to me.
I guess what I’d like to say is, don’t give up in your prayers. Mighty things happen with prayer, impossible things that you could never even dream of. Maybe some day I’ll write more about it. But for now, I’m back on the rails, and I care again.
Back when I lived in England, I was engaged for a year, so I was trying to save money. I lived with a little old lady who was very stingy with her heating. Basically there was none. I woke up morning after morning with ice inside my windows. I’m not joking. I was so cold my bones hurt. I could see my breath every morning as I breathed. My blanket was not very warm either, so how did I survive?
It wasn’t the ancient space heater that hardly put off any heat at all if I put in $2 every hour in coins. Yes, I had to put coins in to get electricity. So I gave up on that. My fiance gave me a heating pad for Christmas, and he made sure it didn’t require electricity. (The plugs are different in England anyway, and he was living in the United States.) All I had to do was click a metal disk to set off the heating pad, and the next day I could boil it and use it again.
I also had a hot water bottle. I used this first. I poured scalding hot water into the hot water bottle. Then I would drag it all around my icy sheets. I would go to sleep with it, and whenever I woke up in pain from the cold in the middle of the night, I would crack the disk on the other one, and aaaahhhh….. I could fall back to sleep and survive.
Now that I live in the United States, I actually have heat in my house. But my husband likes the thermostat a lot lower than I do at night. He complains that my hands are icy, but whose fault is that? I mean, I know I just brushed my teeth with cold water, so it’s technically my fault that my hands are freezing, but my hands would warm up much faster if I wasn’t in Antarctica. Then he begrudges me when I want to turn on my heating pad. He calls it my other lover.
I thought of changing this blog entry into a poem entitled “Ode to a Heating Pad,” only to get laughs from my husband. But I’m too tired for that right now. Maybe I’ll go take a nap with my heating pad…
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Okay, this poem took me about 10 minutes to write, and it was super fun.
Ode to a Heating Pad
When the cold winter winds blow,
When darkness fills the sky,
I’m not shivering under my covers;
And here’s the reason why:
My heating pad is cozy;
My heating pad is hot;
My heating pad fabulous;
I’m so glad it was bought!
I have no need for riches;
I have no need for men;
As long as I have my heating pad,
I’ll never be cold again!
I flopped on the bed and said, “The kids are fed, and they’re ready for church. Technically three of them are sick with a cold and are probably contagious. But if we sit in the back and leave right after the service, they should be fine.”
My husband replied, “It’s not considerate to take sick kids that are contagious to church. I’ll stay home this time.”
I got up and told the kids to change out of their church clothes. My oldest son was disappointed, but my second son cheered. The other two had no reaction. I went back into the bedroom to tell my husband the reaction of our two older sons, and how disturbed I was by the reaction of our second son, who normally loved to go to church.
“Can I play Wii?” shouted my second son from the next room.
“No,” I said flatly. I told my husband that he needed to talk to our second son, since the Wii was obviously the idolatry that had trumped his desire to go to church.
I said good-bye, and off I went to church. When I came home, my husband told me of the conversation he had with my second son. He made my son ponder how much time he spent in the Word of God compared to how much time he spent on the Wii. This would show him what his true love was. My son stopped and thought about it. He has had a soft heart to God for years now, and as parents, we want to make sure that his heart is never hardened by the things of this world. Apparently he took it to heart.
For me, on the other hand, what keeps me from church? Knowing I have to face people who have hurt me, when I see that they still haven’t repented and probably never will. Knowing that the pastor isn’t perfect. Knowing that if God prompts me to speak up, I will get in trouble for obeying God.
And yet there’s something compelling about being with God’s people. Even with all the flaws, something burns inside of me when another believer is talking to me about the things of God. It’s like the people walking on the road to Emmaus, when they knew that Jesus was with them. The church is the body of Christ, and Christ is there, displayed within each person as they use their spiritual gifts. If I’m an eyeball, I can’t hear and I can’t walk without them. God says I need them. That’s why no matter how I feel, I must return to the beautiful fire, the fire that hurts and purifies, before my ember goes out.
“Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.” Hebrews 10:25 (KJV)
