Posts Tagged ‘confession’

Two Prayers for Two Very Different Days

March 30th, 2010

I have a confession… sometimes I hate being a mom. Sometimes I feel totally lost and like the worst mom ever. Sometimes I feel totally selfish and just want to “send him back”. Yesterday was one of those days. This is the prayer I wrote at the end of it…

Lord, forgive me for the ugliness of my own heart.

Forgive me for the resentment I can harbor in my heart towards my precious child.

Forgive me for the anger that can well up so quickly from nowhere even towards one so young, helpless, and innocent.

Forgive me for the deep selfishness that so often lifts its head to threaten my intimacy with my beautiful baby.

Teach me to love my child even when his needs, demands, and fussing keeps me from those things which I both need and want.

Teach me to love my child when he cries all through the night and keeps me from much needed sleep.

Teach me to love my child even when his whining and crying keeps me from doing those things which I think I “have” to do – like the dishes, or keeping the house clean, or getting the laundry done, or responding to emails.

Teach me to love my child when he kicks me, pulls my hair, and aggressively pushes me away when I am holding him – it’s not personal.

Teach me to love my child even when his desire for my constant presence and attention keep me from pursuing my own hobbies and interests.

Teach me to love my child even when I can’t ever finish anything I start.

Teach me to love my child even when he won’t go down for naps and I have little to no break.

Give me new vision for this little person that has been entrusted to me.

Place a new passion on my heart for the gift of life that I hold in my arms.

Give me patience for those moments when I feel lost and confused.

Give me peace and encouragement for those times when I feel like the worst mother ever.

Give me endurance for the sleepless nights and the long days of endless chores and monotonous activity.

Teach me to find joy in reading simple board books over and over again.

Teach me to find joy in being constantly chewed and sucked on whether it’s my finger, breast, arm, elbow, shoulder or chin, or whatever.

Teach me to find joy in narrating my actions, singing silly songs like the itsy bitsy spider, dangling toys just out of reach, and generally entertaining my baby however I can.

Teach me to find joy in holding my child even when my arms ache and my back is sore.

Teach me to find joy in the constant noise and the loss of the silence which I used to enjoy.

Teach me to find joy in being my child’s own personal jungle gym.

And when I need it most bring me rest.

I can’t do it on my own. Change me, Lord. Teach me to find peace and joy and identity in my new role as mother. Bring new life and rejuvenation. Resurrect me.

Amen.

I have another confession to make… sometimes I really love being a mom. Sometimes I feel totally fulfilled by simply taking care of my child and my husband. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed by the amount of love and affection I can feel towards my baby. Sometimes I feel like I have it all figured out. Today was one of those sometimes. Here is my prayer today…

Thank you, Lord, for being present with me in the mundane details of my day today.

Thank you for bringing sleep to my sons heavy eyes so that I could rest and work.

Thank you for giving me motivation and creativity so that I could get things done while still being intimately with my child.

Thank you for giving me ways to entertain him at just the right moments when I felt like I was completely out of ideas.

Thank you for a productive and positive day – a day when my hands worked hard, and my back ached, but I can now look around and feel proud of what I accomplished.

Thank you for giving me this day my daily bread – for meeting my needs right where I was.

But, Lord, I know that today was a good day only because of your grace to me.

I thank you for it, yet I know that I still stand on fragile ground.

I still need you… desperately.

Who knows what tomorrow will bring. Who knows what tonight will bring.

Whatever you choose to send, I am choosing now to accept it from your hands.

I trust that you know what’s best for me.

I trust that you know what’s best for my son.

I trust that you know what’s best for my family.

And I trust that you will meet our needs, at exactly the moment we need you to.

Lord, I need you.

I need you to continually speak sweet encouragement to me as I struggle to figure out what it looks like to mother well.

I need you to continually make me less self centered and more selfless so that I can gladly meet the needs of my child without resentment.

I need you to continually bring me days of rest and nights when my baby will sleep, because when my body is fatigued my mind and soul are hard pressed to meet each days demands.

I need you to show me what is really required of me so that I don’t heap unneeded guilt upon my own shoulders or the shoulders of those around me.

Today I rejoice over a good day, and over how far you have brought me from the place I was in yesterday.

But, today I also recognize that I still have a long way to go and tomorrow is another day.

So, again I pray…

I can’t do it on my own. Change me, Lord. Teach me to find peace and joy and identity in my new role as mother. Bring new life and rejuvenation. Resurrect me.

Amen.
Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

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Tilling the Soil

August 10th, 2008

Life has been a bit overwhelming lately. To use a gardening metaphor, it feels like God has been tilling the soil of my heart. It’s a really good and necessary process, but it’s difficult too. Weeds with deep roots get pulled, old soil that hasn’t seen the light of day in years gets dug up, and hard pieces of earth and clay get broken. That’s exactly how I’ve felt lately.

God has been pulling up some weeds – showing me and convicting me of sin and ugliness in my life. And I feel like he has been trying to cleanse me anew from some of the deep seated junk in my heart and life. Sometimes I respond well to his prompting in confession and repentance and other times my heart clings to the familiar weeds and to my own safety. Lord, help me to let go – help me to let go of all that is not of you and all that hurts you. Lord, continue your work in me and pull out all the junk and ugliness that there might be room for new growth.

God has also been turning the soil of my heart, bringing things that have long been buried up to the surface. I feel like around every corner the past few weeks there has been a memory or a realization about my past. There have been a lot of insecurities that have been brought to light in me the past few weeks and God has often also revealed some truth about where those insecurities come from. It has been a week of epiphanies. In some ways it has also been a week of mourning. As I realize more about myself and my story and more of that gets brought into the open I also realize more about my own brokenness and the brokenness of those around me, and I mourn. Lord, help me to accept the digging that you are doing in my soil – help me to let you dig and not to try and stop you before you are finished. I want you to bring to light the very darkest places of me and teach me what I am in you. I feel weary and tired from the process already, but I want to open myself up to you, Lord. Finish the work you began in me.

God has also been breaking the hard soil of my heart. Those places that had become hardened by hurt or pain or fear, the places that I had avoided in my life and in others because it was too difficult to go there – those places God is beginning to break down. I feel my heart softening towards all those around me and unknown to me. I feel myself wanting to plant new seeds of hope and justice in my heart instead of fear, denial, or judgment. But, even as I feel that softening there is a final clinging to my old naiveté. There is a part of me that doesn’t want to be softened, that feels it will be too difficult and too tiring – a part of me that rebels and says that I am fine as I am. Lord, break me, even when I fight against the breaking. Lord, break the judgment in my heart, break the fear that has for so long ruled my life, break my tendency to avoid and run from pain in my life and in others. Help me to instead run towards those who are hurting and in need, just as you did, Lord Jesus. Give me opportunities and the courage needed to fight for justice and to bring hope and help to all those you put in front of me.

Lord, continue to till the soil of my heart, but please, Lord, don’t stop there! Begin to plant seeds in me that will spring forth into works of your glory! In Jesus name, Amen.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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Tuesday Prayer: A Prayer from the Anglican Prayer Book

August 5th, 2008

Almighty and most merciful Father,
I have erred and strayed from thy ways like a lost sheep,
I have followed too much the devices and desires of my own heart,
I have offended against thy holy laws,
I have felt undone those things which I ought to have done,
and I have done those things which I ought not to have done.
But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon me,
spare thou those who congess their faults,
restore thou those who are penitent,
according to thy promise declared unto mankind
in Christ Jesus our Lord;
and grant, O most merciful Father, for His sake,
that I may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life,
to the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

Amen.
Rejoicing in the journey -
Bethany Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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Friendship and Confession…

February 22nd, 2008

Confession isn’t popular. People not only don’t like to do it, they don’t even really like to think about it or talk about it. One way I know this because I don’t like to do it or to think about it or talk about it (not to mention that the blog I previously wrote on confession is incredibly unpopular statistically, but I digress…)

Yesterday, a friend asked what my focus for this third week of lent was and I told her “friends or more generally focusing on my relationships with those the people I come in contact with.”Her response was something to the extent of asking what that will look like and asking “so will you be confessing to friends this week?” I was kind of taken back by the question… I hadn’t planned on it. I didn’t want to confess to friends. I think as I had been thinking about this week I had thought mostly about praying for people I know and for the strangers I pass by, about being open to God leading me to talk to someone I normally wouldn’t talk to or to listen to a friend who needs a listening ear. I had thought about focusing on being a good friend to my friends and to those I wouldn’t normally consider my friends. But, I had forgotten that being a good friend requires openness and honesty and being open and honest requires confession. And I had forgotten the other focus of Lent that God kept bringing up in my research… repairing brokenness.

Is there brokenness in my relationships with others (whether they are family members, friends, acquaintances, etc) that God wants me to confess and mend?

Lord, look for truth deep within my relationships and show me where I might need to confess to them and to you and repent and change the way I relate to others. In Jesus name. Amen.

Rejoicing in the journey -
Beth Stedman

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Ash Wednesday Reflections: Confession

February 7th, 2008

candle.jpgMy friend Tara wrote a blog on her site about Ash Wednesday and Confession that encouraged me to think a little more about this concept of confession.  The Liturgy of Ash Wednesday at its heart is a liturgy of confession (we are but ashes and to ashes we shall return, we have fallen short, we have sinned, we need God) and as I read through the Ash Wednesday liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer last night, and again read part of it posted on Tara’s blog, I found myself pondering this concept of confession. So, I wanted to share with you a few of my thoughts…

 I have been thinking off and on the last few weeks about the need to confess to each other… we talked about it a little bit during our storying time at Craig and Sarah’s a few weeks ago and then I was listening to a lecture on Christian history and reminded what an essential piece of the Christian journey confession has always been. There was a time in church history when to confess meant to stand before the whole body of believers/church and tell all of them what you had done wrong – to name your sin before them all – can you imagine that happening today? How foreign that is from our own experience! Even the more private act that confession eventually became in the church (thanks to the Irish concept of “anam cara”) has been lost in protestant circles especially and I wonder how much we have lost…

I think that when you confess to another human being there is something bonding and binding in that moment that we have perhaps lost by our attempt to keep our fellow believers at arm’s length and only show them the good sides of us. It makes me think of this quote I read once…”The final breakthrough to fellowship does not occur because though they have fellowship with one another as believers and as devout people, they do not have fellowship as the undevout, as sinners.” When we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity for fellowship.

But, we lose something else as well… We lose a sense of our need for God. It is only in naming and recognizing our sin that we can realize how much we really do need God. Too often I think I say that I need God but if I search myself carefully I don’t really think or act like I need him…I think I can do it on my own – it makes me think of a line from an Ingrid Michaelson song “I could write my name by the age of three and I don’t need anyone to cut my meat for me. I’m a big girl now, see my big girl shoes. It’ll take more than just a breeze to make me fall over.” Confession is an act that causes us to fall over and fall down; confession makes us admit that we aren’t as big as we think we are, we aren’t as strong as we think we are, we aren’t as self-sufficient as we think we are. Confession forces us to come face to face with our own inadequacy and our own need for a savior….When we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity to experience and recognize our own need for God.

I have had very limited experience with confession – I think really the one place that I have really experienced confession on a regular basis is with my husband. It seems like there are often moments when I can clearly see how I have sinned against him and wronged him and need to confess to him and ask for his forgiveness – and it’s a beautiful thing when that happens, in fact some of the times when I have felt closest to my husband has been the times when I have confessed to him some fault against him and humbly, often through tears, asked for his forgiveness. Then he holds me close and for a moment any brokenness that has been in our relationship is mended and I feel close to him, connected to him more deeply than normal. Maybe when we just jump to trying to fix our sin and change our ways and skip over confessing openly our sin we miss out on a precious moment of connection that we could experience with God. Perhaps when we drop and ignore and neglect confession we lose a unique opportunity to experience the loving embrace and close connectedness of God, our first Love.

… but confession is hard… and so foreign to my experience so far that I find myself lost as to how to incorporate it into my Christian walk… I’m starting to feel that confession is something that needs to be brought back into our communal church experience, but I don’t know how to confess… I don’t really know what confession should look like… or maybe that’s just my excuse – maybe the real fact of the matter is I fear confessing, I don’t want to confess, I don’t want to admit that I fail and sin and fall. I want to be strong and perceived as strong. I don’t want to be weak and perceived as weak. Again God brings me back to “lowly and meek, yet all-powerful” – confessing and repenting and falling down before God is a weakness that is also strength. But, it is not strength in myself or my own ability, it is strength in that it is recognizing that the only strength I have is found in Him. I need Him; I am nothing on my own. But, in Him I can become a new creation, a new life, and be given His strength. Confession is an act of death that leads to resurrection and life.

Rejoicing in the journey –
Beth Stedman

Photograph by Beth Stedman

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