Communication Breakdown

I love receiving mail.  Phone calls from my husband while he’s at work make my day.  I check my email regularly and love keeping in touch on Facebook.  New comments on my blog have become a new source of excitement.  I suppose when you are a stay-at-home mom with two small children, communication with the adult world becomes so valuable.  But it’s not just that.  I really enjoy the idea that someone was thinking about me, that someone wanted to share parts of their day with me.  It is a nice feeling to know you are thought about.

Colette’s memory verse this week for school is “The Lord delights in the prayers of His people.” (Proverbs 15:8)  I was suffering from a bad attitude yesterday and the verse was a friendly reminder to communicate with God.  Often it is my sister that I call up when I am having a rough day (or a good one… or a boring one… or a regular one… you get the point).  We chat about the good and the bad and share in our frustrations.  I always feel better when I hang up the phone.  Communication is good.  Colette’s verse reminded me that communicating with God is the best communication I can have all day.  As I once confessed in an earlier blog, I am guilty of shying away from God when I am not in the best of moods, particularly because I like to wallow in self-pity and there is no chance God will allow that.  So yesterday I was wallowing away about being stuck at home due to poor road conditions with two kids who got up way too early and were full of naughty energy and draining me of mine, when I read this verse to Colette.

I paused to consider if God could possibly delight in hearing from me in my current state of crabbiness.  I am not sure I “delight” in speaking with someone who is in a sour mood, but I do like being a source of comfort to others.  It is a special friendship that confides in you during times of trouble.  It is why I appreciate my relationship with my sister so much because I do not have to be ashamed of my emotions, nor she, hers.  And it is this kind of relationship that God is asking of me.  I imagined God just waiting for my status update, thinking, “Katie’s in such a foul mood- why doesn’t she just come talk to me?”  I bet it hurts Him to know He holds gifts of peace and joy and happiness and I reject His offerings.

I know that if I was going through some life-struggle and I withheld it from my sister, she would wonder why once discovered.  I know it would likely cause her some sorrow that I chose to suffer on my own and did not trust her with my feelings.  And isn’t that the case when we choose not to communicate with God?  Not only does He feel sorrow that we are choosing to suffer without the comforts that He has to offer, but that we are often not trusting Him with our true emotions.  Yesterday, despite me being aware of how completely irrational I was, I was furious about the snow.  I am not a fan of cold, shoveling while pregnant, bundling small children, scraping windows, icy roads, and ultimately, being stuck at home.  I had plans for playgroup (a wonderful opportunity to communicate with adults while my children play) and grocery shopping.  Both were sidelined by the snow.  Meanwhile the kids woke up an hour earlier than usual and I was tired.  Telling God that His snow was messing with my plans was not a conversation I wanted to have… with Him, anyway.  I called my sister.  We both grumbled about the inconveniences of snow.  My feelings felt validated.

But I laid in bed for a long time last night considering that verse and feeling shameful for my bad attitude yesterday.  I realized that I was dealing with bigger issues than snow.  I have a really poor communication system with God.  He delights in hearing from me, not because He remains clueless about my day to day until I do, but because it exercises my trust and faith in Him.  It shows that I delight in hearing from Him, too.

James 5:16 tells us that “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”  I do not believe this means that a prayer can change the will of God, rather that it will change our heart to conform to that will and find the peace and understanding that God offers in it.  So often we allow our struggles to complicate our day, rather than consider how God might use them for our edification.  While many yesterday were delighting in the blanket of snow and it’s beauty, I wasted away the day being angry about it.  Today as I look out on the snowy landscape I am reminded of how God blankets us with His love and His purity, making us a new creation on a daily basis for so long as we allow Him to communicate that message to us.