The Father's Lap...

Happy Father’s Day! I had lunch at my parents’ house, where I presented my Dad with a gift card to Lowe’s. Of course Lowe’s didn’t have any Father’s Day gift cards, so I got him one that said “Just Married.” Fortunately, Dad is a good sport, so he found the humor in it.

Because he’s a good sport, I’m pretty sure he won’t mind that I’m choosing to talk about my other Father today…

God is good.

I read on Beth Moore’s blog this week, “God is so busy restoring the years the locusts have eaten in her life that, if He weren’t omnipotent, He’d honestly have no time for the rest of us.” It’s kind of how I feel about my life right now. I am taking up so much of His time that if He weren’t omnipotent, y’all might be out of luck.

Dozens – even hundreds – of times each day, I find myself whispering His name. Sometimes, and I do try to reserve these times for when I’m safely home alone or in my car alone, that whisper evolves into a bit of a yell. But He can hear both and He does. You have no idea the times I’ve cried out His name and the response is a very gentle, I’m right here…be still…trust Me.

One of my favorite places to pray lately has been the rug in my bedroom. I have a hardwood floor, and a few years ago, Mom and Dad gave me an extra rug they had so the chilly winter mornings would be a little bit more bearable in the world of cold floors. The rug is at the end of my bed, and a few weeks back, it became the location of a significant spiritual victory.

For a week and a half, Satan chased me relentlessly. I don’t understand too much about spiritual warfare, but I have a healthy respect for its reality. All I know is for that week and a half, he didn’t leave me alone for one second. I quoted Scripture and prayed and did everything I knew to do. Finally, one night, I knelt down on that rug and gripped the edge of it until my knuckles turned white. I was crying so hard I could barely breathe, and after starting a few dozen sentences I couldn’t finish, I declared “I choose YOU!” I didn’t know what God wanted of me, but whatever it was had to be better than this torment.

Somehow I finished out that evening and when I awakened the next morning, I sort of peeked out through one eye to see if that suffocating feeling was still there. It wasn’t. And I knew in that moment, that battle had been won. Later that day, God whispered to my heart that I was right. Victory burst forth on that piece of tan carpeting at the end of my bed. I still don’t know what victory it was, but victory happened. God also told me that for the rest of this desert journey I walk, Satan will not be allowed to get at me that way again. Praise the LORD for that.

Ever since, that little square of carpeting has become my favorite place to pray. I can pray anywhere, and I do. My walking path, the driver’s seat of my car, my desk at work, the prayer chapel on campus, nearly every square inch of my house, behind the lawn mower, they’ve all been turned into an altar. But that carpeting…it’s not an altar.

It’s the lap of the Father.

More times than I can count, I’ve literally fallen to my knees and squished my face into it until I can barely breathe, and there I begin to pray. I’ve been known to stay there until my legs go completely numb and I can’t stand. And often I end up curling up on my side, where I just imagine His arms around me, rocking me softly. And yes, I even fall asleep there, and I awaken knowing He’s watched over me. Refreshed me.

He is good.


~ In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will. ~ Romans 8:26-27