I want to tell you a story about one of my children, but I will use a different name to do so. It was this last week that this really happened. One of our young children walked up to a stranger and said, “Hi! What’s your name? My name is Benjamin and I’m adorable.”
It wasn’t entitled like it might sound something like this would be, it was confident and happy. When the stranger asked more, Benjamin simply said, my parents told me that, as he turned to me with a smile and said, “Right Mama?”, before he ran off to play again, not looking or waiting for anything from me except my smile.
With shining eyes and lightness of foot he was off again. This was the first thing I thought of when I began to consider our prayer focus this week:
“Only goodness and lovingkindness shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” -Psalm 23:6
It feels like it has taken me a long time to have this kind of confidence about the love of the Father. I’ve had a lot of questions and doubts. I’ve also had enough un-Fatherlike stories with un-Fatherlike definitions of love that has often left me confused and wounded.
I know you have had those stories and definitions in your life as well. I feel like this is a very real place we can meet with our persecuted family. Although wildly different circumstances, there is a common spiritual enemy, many common lies and and all with an entirely common goal: kill, steal and destroy. Yet more than that, a common world that belongs to our Father in heaven we all dwell in. This garden we’ve largely lost eyes to see, we’re all laboring in, together.
So we can cry out together, understanding one another, hold up each other, bless and keep each other. This is the joy of this place of meeting, seeing and understanding our common heritage—together we are beloved children who can confidently look over to see our Father’s smile, His countenance shining on us. This changes everything.
We can know our true name, in His light. This is the place called prayer.
Keep Praying Martyrs’ Cross Family, we’re with you!
Raynna, for the whole family
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