24-7 Easter prayer

this week has been 24/7 Easter in greensboro. this whole holy week has been accented by events in this sacred space. passover...maundy-thursday...good friday...and now preparations for easter morning.

it has probably been my favorite one that i've been a part of (excluding the first one because i only attended that one, and because that one will always be my favorite since it marks the beginning of this new prayer life in me). it is because i felt real ownership in it this year--like i was not only hands, but a voice and a brain behind it. it is exhausting though. every day of going to work and then rushing over to be there for an event, or to watch the door, or to relieve becky, or to simply be there because it's where i want to be. it has been my joy to play an active role in this event...but this morning i am tired. i am tired of being pulled in so many directions (i blame my job, mostly!) and my life not feeling like my own. dishes have grown into a monstrous, pungent tower; the yard looks like a jungle; piles of washed and unwashed clothes lay strewn about; the floor is clearly in need of being vacuumed; and our fridge is so empty it echos when it's opened. my life feels scattered like so many seeds on a field and i only hope something fruitful emerges from this chaos.

i was thinking last night about how the first year i ever went to a 24/7 prayer room (by becky inc.), i spent a lot of time at each station, doing every little thing. every year that i am involved in organizing or "putting on" a prayer event, i do less and less of the stations. i love almost all of the stations we set up this year, but some of them, i have not even done myself. i was wondering to myself, and to God, i suppose, if i should feel guilty about that. then i had this thought that setting up the room, maintaining the stations and "chaperoning" the door were my worship. i do this at home, too. i set up all these personal stations and get excited about all these new prayer ideas at home but i only do them sporadically, or for a little while before moving on to something else. my good friend Heather was the one who encouraged me not to feel discouraged and to recognize the worship and prayer that i was doing even though i wasn't being disciplined and following through as much as i wished i could (or would...).

this year, i desperately wanted to feel emotionally alive and connected to the room and my experiences in the room. i wanted to cry, i wanted to be overwhelmed with emotional realizations. i wanted to feel deeply the messages of holy week. i stopped to meditate, i came to help lead worship for 4 hours straight, i fulfilled my personal time slot praying from 9-midnight one night. maybe God didn't bless me in that way because i was doing it for myself...or maybe because i was too busy to truly stop and be meditative...or maybe it became about DOING, about RELIGION and not about Jesus...or maybe im supposed to be okay with our relationship not being emotionally charged all the time (although it's JESUS! so i feel like it should be...)...or maybe it was all these things or none of these things. i am not naive enough, i dont think, to suppose that i was just one of these things or had just one of these feelings the whole week. i am a roulette of motivations and emotions and desires--never the same combination, even in the same moment. all i know is that i feel empty this morning, and emotionally shut down and...well, and a little disappointed.

perhaps it is tiredness, a disorganized home, and a week of eating junk food on the go with no exercise that makes me feel restless and irritable and frustrated this morning. i want to do what i want to do with my day but the "must dos" have piled atop this declaration of freedom and buried it. i am staring at a blank piece of folded paper that will become my grocery list, and mikey is paying bills and i am hoping i can stop to buy some flip-flops so my poor feet can breathe in this stifling weather (it's not fair--it's not summer yet!) before i go on to the church for the rest of the afternoon.