The Rent Is Late and the Praises Keep Coming
What do you do when the bills are overdue but the praises keep coming? In this entry I pray through financial struggle, confess what I am not yet ready to repent of, intercede for a generation of spiritual mentors, and end up outside singing at the top of my lungs. Come read in.
5/27/20266 min read
Before I bring you into this prayer, let me give you a little context so you are not lost.
My husband Rob and I are in one of the harder seasons of our marriage. I recently lost work, and we are currently living off of his part-time income while we wait on a check that has been significantly delayed. As of this writing, this month's rent is still unpaid and another month is days away. We are also in the process of selling our home. A renovation we hoped to fund fell through, but God has been quietly working in the details, bringing repair costs in lower than we feared. It is not the miracle we asked for, but it is a mercy we did not miss.
Rob leads a live music and community experience called Life After Sunday, or LAS. It is part concert, part dinner, part church for people who would never call it that. Through R&B, pop, and gospel music, food, and honest storytelling, LAS creates space for people to encounter Jesus outside of the four walls of a traditional church. It is also a place of healing and rest for creatives, where there is freedom to explore faith through different forms of expression. It is one of the things I am most proud of us for building together.
I also attend a gathering called Selah Sessions, a contemplative worship and prayer experience. I will reference it later in this entry.
That is enough to catch you up. The rest, I will leave between me and God. You are welcome to listen in.
Heavenly Father,
Thank you for your grace and mercy. You are so good to me, and sometimes I just need to be reminded of that and to sit in that truth. So much has been going on, but I will not allow it to dictate how I relate to You. God, this season is hard, but I thank You for the trials and for the many needs that come with it. Without these, I would not be able to experience You as the Lord who provides. I would not be able to feel the love of my community as they come and shower me with affection and care. Your Word says to give thanks in all circumstances, for this is Your will for me in Christ Jesus. I trust You. I trust that You know what You are doing. You are good, and You do all things well.
Despite the financial weight we are carrying, it has been a great weekend. Thank You for the LAS get-together. It was a full and beautiful time of music, laughter, community, and prayer. I will confess, though, that there were some crude jokes I initiated and laughed along with that did not bring You glory. I know it to be sin, and I want to be honest with You: I am not yet at a place where I feel genuine repentance over it. My conviction is there but my heart has not fully followed. Lord, please close that gap. Change my heart so that I feel about those moments the way You feel about them. And if there is anyone I offended, please bring them to my mind and give me the courage to go to them.
Even so, I thank You for using me to encourage my brothers and sisters in Christ. Prayer time was powerful. But there was one conversation that has not left me since. It came up among some of the LAS core team and it was about spiritual mothers and fathers, about mature believers stepping into mentorship and familial roles for those coming up behind them. I know that this language has been misused. One person in that conversation shared their experience of being hurt in a spiritual family context and even of being part of a group that operated like a cult. What made it so difficult to leave was not ideology but relationship. The bonds they had formed with leadership held them longer than the truth should have allowed. That story stayed with me because I understand it more than I wish I did. I too know what it is to be wounded by spiritual family and yet still feel the pull to open my life to others. And if I am honest, I am nervous about it. Nervous about mishandling someone God is placing in my care.
But even in that fear, Lord, I felt You stir something in me during that conversation. A desire to intercede for those You are calling into these roles as spiritual parents, as big brothers and sisters, as aunties and uncles in the faith. It feels like the enemy is burning the candle at both ends, wounding those who need someone to follow while discouraging those who are meant to lead. And it is causing people to shrink back from their callings altogether. Lord, I pray against that. I pray for the people You are bringing to me to disciple. I pray that I would love them genuinely, not out of duty but from a heart that has been loved well by You. I pray that You would lead me to intercede for them and that You would make plain who I am meant to be walking with in this season. I know there are women who are hungry for that kind of investment. Lord, help me arrange my life to be able to welcome them in.
This connects to the word I received this past Monday at Selah Sessions. A young woman I have crossed paths with a few times in shared circles, someone I know of but do not yet know closely, spoke something over me that I cannot shake. She said You are forming me to be a great intercessor, not just for people but for nations. That You would use my words to bring blessing and healing. She also spoke about the ministry Rob and I carry together, saying it would reach people who would never walk through the doors of a traditional church but would come to an event, come to a gathering, come because someone they trusted brought them somewhere that felt safe. That is not a small word. We are already watching a legacy take shape, people who love You and who are carrying the gospel into their everyday lives. I truly believe there is nothing better in this life than to be known by You, loved by You, and used for Your glorious purposes.
What happened in worship after that word is hard to put into words, but I want to try. Selah Sessions moved into a time of intercessory prayer. The room was slow and still and meditative. But something began to rise in me quietly. I started speaking in tongues. Then it became singing, softly at first, just under my breath. Then the singing grew. Then my body followed. I was on my feet, dancing and praising with everything I had, right in the middle of a room full of people in quiet contemplative prayer. I had to step outside. Not because I was embarrassed, but because the joy was too loud to keep inside and I did not want to pull anyone out of their moment with You. So I went outside and I let it out. Every bit of it.
God, thank You for that. Thank You for giving me a joy that this season has not been able to touch. The praises keep coming. The smile is still there. I am not utterly destroyed. I am not even close. And You have surrounded me with a community that is walking through life with me, praising You alongside me, and reminding me of who You are when I forget.
You are so worthy. You are absolutely, positively amazing. There is none like You and none besides You. You deserve all honor, glory, and praise. Now unto Him who is able to keep my feet from stumbling and to present me blameless before God our Father with exceeding joy, to You Lord Jesus be praise, honor, dominion, and power, both now and forevermore. Amen
