Articles tagged 'distraction'

Prayer e-mails from Laura

(This in no way a rip off of C S Lewis’ Prayer Letters to Malcolm)

Sometimes the Christian life is amazing. Sometimes you walk around and little birds come to rest on your shoulder. They sweetly tweet Handle’s Messiah into your ear, as you walk around the garden in your white sheet and sandals, deeply engrossed in a very ‘deep’ prayer for all of the homeless sea turtles around the world.

But sometimes it’s not like this. Or at least sometimes for me it isn’t like this. Sometimes whilst the rest of the congregation is in a state of religious ecstasy I’m wondering what’s for lunch. There are occasions when everyone else in church seems to be deeply engrossed in the sermon and I’m thinking about rugby. There have been intense prayer sessions where I fell asleep (this by the way is why monks traditionally wear those big hoods - that way no-one can see their eyes when they’re supposed to be praying).

Praying isn’t always easy, reading the Bible isn’t always easy either. God can sometimes feel a million miles away, and during those times you can feel like you are the most rubbish Christian in the world.

I feel like this quite a lot, but one of the big things that has helped me to cope with this has been the knowledge that I am not alone in this struggle. One friend in particular has helped me to realize this through a series of e-mails which I found incredibly encouraging.

So for all of those frustrated saints out there here is my ‘Prayer E-mail from Laura’: (more…)