Ganeida's Knots

When we talk to God, we're praying.  When God talks to us, we're schizophrenic. ~ Jane Wagner

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dearie, dearie me. We are so quiet here on our little island, toddling along in our little Puddleduck puddle while the world spins by but it was brought home to me last night, forcebly, that we are more than a little odd ~ & we scare people.

Have you been following along?    If not, in brief, my darling oldest daughter applied for the mission field last year & was accepted only there was a hiccup so she is still waiting on clearance.  Meanwhile she has been getting involved in other things & one of those other things has been the OM prayer meeting once a month on Thursdays.  Here you can read about OM.  Here you can read about the sort of opportunities they offer.

The OM prayer meeting is not the sort of place you would generally find me.  Now don't get me wrong; I believe in prayer. I believe in corporate prayer. I will even admit there is a time & a place for prayer to be verbalised but .... I am a Quaker.  I go about things a little differently.  I am a big picture thinker; I rarely, if ever, pay attention to the details.  That being the case I rarely inflict myself on more traditional congregations & when it happens I try to fade into the background because I dislike making people uncomfortable & it is hard to discombobulate me unless you really attack me ~ & most people are far too polite to do that at a prayer meeting.

Now you have the picture I was surprised when Liddy said I'd been specifically invited to attend last night's prayer meeting.  Ooookaaay..... No kameeze 'cause I don't know these people.  Conservative pants & top & a discreet covering, a nice little blue & white tie~dye bandanna that shouldn't alarm anyone.  Liddy did pre~warn me that I wouldn't be allowed to fade gently into the background because people were constantly broken up into prayer partnerships.  Mmmmhuh. And that was the first problem. Would I pray first?  Not a problem ~ only I found people expected me to say something straight away before I'd even managed to gather my scattered wits; I was constantly being nudged to get a move along.  Yikes!  All around me people were galloping along at a great rate of knots exhorting the Lord loudly & clearly for very specific needs while I was meandering along chatting amiably about the Big Picture ~ raising up workers, ripe harvests, salt & light, as I do but struggling because just when I was thinking I might about centre & do deeper into prayer there was a loud AMEN, indicating we were all to change partners & the whole process started again for another worker in another country.  How do people pray like this?  It was exhausting!  But you know, this is part of Liddy's prayer team & it's important so I tried to stay with the boat you know, & not drift sideways. 

So after two hours of this I was headachy & queasy so when one of the ladies who'd done the rounds with me asked about Liddy I was past being tactful.  As I used to tell the obstreperous boys who thought asking me embarrassing questions would disconcert me, "Are you sure you want to know because if you do I will tell you?"  So I told her about it being 10 years in the growing & about God having first dibs on Liddy & about the strange places He's led her wondering why she was starting to look a little wild around the eyes & as though I'd grown a set of horns & carried a little pitchfork ~ only to have Liddy inform me later this was the *church missions* lady & she had doubts about sending Liddy. *sigh* 

You know, it would be so helpful if, before offering an opinion & telling Lid what she should or should not be doing, people actually spent some time asking the Lord so we could all get on the same page.  Ever so helpful ~ & I could take my feet out of my mouth!