PRAYER LINE

Prayer Line

by Heather McGillivray (reprinted from June 10, 2011 with permission)

This morning, as I was hanging my laundry on the line in descending order of weight and size, I took my time to drape the last few articles—with stains—facing the sun. Nothing can disintegrate mustard spots and fade the vilest blotches of blood like a June morning’s piercing rays. Last week I hung a white tunic up with a mango mark that hadn’t come out in the wash, and hours later I reeled it back in without spot or wrinkle. Okay, it still had a few wrinkles­—we’re at the mercy of the wind for that—but the yellow fleck had forever fled from the sun’s penetrating gaze.

That wasn’t the first time this morning I’d aired my dirty laundry, though. I hauled my basket full of soiled cares and sullied concerns to my prayer place and washed them in the water of His Word. I let His mercy pour healing agents into the rinse as I scrubbed every anxiety over the washboard of His wisdom and commands. Ours is no quick-cycle chemical cleansing—prayer is a ‘roll up your sleeves’ kind of rewarding work.

Sometimes I get up from on my face before God fully cleansed and refreshed. Other times, like this morning, I find there are things that just didn’t come out in the wash.

So I hung them up on my faith-line. I tethered them to mercy, and secured them with trust—carefully positioning each one before the Son’s face. He sees them, I know. They don’t stand a chance against His penetrating gaze.

Clouds might get in the way, this is true. But out there they will stay until He comes through.

I like to think that prayer is a little like doing my laundry. I have to keep up with it or I don’t have anything to wear. Sometimes a gentle rinse cycle is all I need. Some requests get put through the wringer. And some things just have to hang and dry.

purify yourselves and change your clothes. Genesis 35:2

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Heather McGillivray

Heather lives in Chelmsford, Ontario, with her college aged children. She knows they haven’t left yet because she’s still doing their laundry and buying lots of groceries–she just can’t figure out where they’re hiding, or what they’ve done with the van.
The most exciting thing in her life right now, apart from Jesus, is that He’s letting her write her very first novel, and she’s almost done it. She loves poetry, and could get lost for weeks at a time in a good one.
What she knows above all else, is that God hears and answers prayer–and for that she is eternally grateful. Visit her at her blog.

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