Shoreline Park Prayer Meeting

Tonight we took a field trip during prayer meeting down to a park near to the Berkeley Boys' house. At said park, we separated for about thirty minutes for our own personal reflection and prayer time to lift up the needs of the church body. I always love Shoreline prayer meetings because they allow me time to spend in prayer while providing the most fabulous fellowship time, like, ever. This evening, of course, was no exception. Though we didn't spend as much time discussing our prayer requests with each other, I really enjoyed getting some alone time with God. Life gets hectic, and I'll admit that I'm not so fabulous when it comes to setting aside generous chunks of time with the Lord.

Despite my shortcomings, God really showed up tonight to teach me a few things. Even though I had been no where near faithful about coming before the Lord this week, I'm convinced that He has a few words to whisper into my ear. Here's how it all went down.

I definately love nature. So I really enjoyed getting to lean on the trees and play with the flowers and listen to the creek flowing in this little park. It was also a really interesting juxtaposition to the city street, accompanying noise and slightly scary homeless. Lots of creation to observe there on Wilshire.

In light of recent unmentionable life issues, I started thinking about love languages. This dude named Gary Chapman wrote a book about love languages that I recently read, even though I've known about the concept for years now. Basically, he suggests that people understand and show love in different ways, which he categorizes as the five major love languages: quality time, words of affirmation, gifts, acts of service, and physical touch. He suggests that many relationships struggle because the partners, in a sense, speak different languages to each other. What may communicate love to one party, may not reach the other, which in turn causes that person to feel unloved since no one speaks to him in his own language. I think that serves as a decent explanation of the concept, but it's kind of late, so if this section makes no sense, I'm sorry. I will spell check this post at least...

Anyways, I am a total physical touch person. I love to be hugged (not awkward side or static-pat-on-the-back hugs). I bite. I pounce. I wrestle. This says love to me. If you are one of the privileged few whose appendage contains a dental imprint clear enough to identify me on CSI, know that you are sincerely loved.

All my life, being fluent in physical-love has made certain situations difficult. Think Junior High when the Youth Group thing to do was to avoid touching or looking at boys. Hugs matter a lot to me, so being taught that they are somehow wrong made it difficult for me to feel loved by guy friends. It's also a huge bummer that I can't just curl up with God when I'm sad. I started thinking about this tonight....and with every other love language, God seems able to speak clearly to people. But He never touches me. Think about this...if you are most loved by affirmations, reading what God says about you in the Bible can be a really encouraging reminder that He definately loves you. If you feel most loved when someone spends quality time with you, it's easy to set aside quality time with God. Gifts? Just count your blessings. Service? Think of all the things God has arranged in your life--those "coincidences" that have allowed you wonderful opportunities. But who has gotten to tackle God? Who gets to sit in His lap? I started to wonder...This totally can't be fair! God loves all the other language groups--why doesn't he love me in the way that I was created to feel most loved?

I moved on from this topic and tried again to focus on praying for the church and the specific needs of our members. As we wrapped up, I off-handedly commented that I had spent the entire time touching everything I saw: the tree bark and branches, the rocks, and the flowers. what can I say? I'm tactile.

It hit me mid-group-prayer. God let me touch everything in His creation. I was inadvertantly touching Him.

How amazing is it that God can and will speak to each of us in a language we understand. If we are willing to keep our eyes open, we will begin to notice God's overwhelming love in all sorts of weird places. He's around whether we see Him or not, and He longs to love us in a unique and special way. He knows our slang, our inside jokes...everything that makes our speech patterns our own.