Words are back

Wow. We had a Prayer Vigil on Good Friday night from 7pm till midnight but it didn't feel like 5 hours. Kids showed up to stay for an hour and left after 2. More kids showed up than I had ever imagined. The Prayer Wall and the Prayer Tent were firm favourites for them. One parent was so overcome by the profound creativity of her son that she was moved to tears. I could understand why: There were some crosses made out of ice lolly sticks, some 3 inch nails and paper crosses on which to write your prayers. He took one of the lolly crosses and pierced it with a nail (which was no mean feat.) On the paper cross he drew a picture of Christ, pierced holes in his hands and feet, wrote "Jesus Christ crucified" and "I died for my world" and then stuck it onto the nail itself like the spear piercing Christ's side. Incredible. When we joined together on the hour to read through an Iona Prayer and some scripture he offered to read the passage. At the age of eleven and having not read aloud for over a year he bravely stepped up to read the 21 verses, with a little assistance for the words that were too demanding. He also stayed the whole 5 hours till midnight. I cannot adequately describe this experience, only give snapshots of some of the things that were going on in that place.

Who can say where time went that evening. Hours felt like minutes. We joined together for Iona Prayers then went to our other stations for the rest of the hour (prayer wall, prayer tent, meditations at the cross, mission zone, Bible zone, Passover scene, or simply the pews) and yet time passed so quickly that before we even realised it the bell was chiming the hour once more. Unbelievable and yet strangely believable.

Heaven touched Earth and none of us are the same. All my anxieties melted in that place. There were battles going on for sure - those who were more perceptive to that stuff could sense it. Felt like a raging storm within me had died down. One man prayed a prayer that those who had been grieving for too long could move on. That prayer pierced me through and through. I came away and wrote in my journal how if I could pray one prayer it would be that my words would return and all the things that come in the way of my inspiration would be taken away and that I could write objectively about the wilderness time. I basically wanted the pain of loss to ease, the huge obstacle of anger about where I am to be removed and all the anxiety about my life and my future to ebb away. Words returned. I have a new understanding about myself and I can look with new eyes upon the world.

Yesterday I was gazing out the window as the sun sank lower and saw the weather front that was forecast to bring wind and rain on the horizon. But it didn't appear to me to be 'just weather'. I was in a ship on a sea of inky blue and the bank of cloud on the horizon was an island getting closer. I remembered how much I love the sky. It was a swathe of blue/grey with a couple of horizontal beams of thin cloud. Edging closer I knew I would see it arrive before the sun set but it brought no fear or gloom in my heart to know that the clearer skies would soon be covered and the still air would soon be stirred. It was more like an excitement of anticipation. Strange that the imminence of cloud and rain would not make my heart sink like the sun. New eyes.

I am tired, of course. I had only 4.5 hours sleep that night, to be awoken at 5:30am in order to reach the church by 6 to commence the final hour of prayer. I then had a full day's work. And yet I did not feel at all groggy or wasted like I normally would. I accepted that I was tired and therefore had a limit to what I might be able to endure and so was more relaxed. My colleagues noted this also. Other days would have seen me irritable and a little spaced, but not yesterday. The other-worldly strength seemed to reign within me. It spread as well. One pilot who knew what I had been doing asked, partly in jest, whether I would pray that the radio in his aircraft, which had been playing up for the past few weeks, would work okay. I said I would and he left to fly his student. He came back a couple of hours later and informed me that my prayers had worked and that the radio worked fine for the whole flight. Incredible. Prior to this the radio had been working so badly that the other instructors had to take a handheld radio with them in order to communicate with Air Traffic Control. It would switch itself off, reset its frequency unprompted and automatically go to the emergency frequency, sometimes mid-sentence. But not yesterday.

I am excited by what God is doing here right now and looking forward to seeing the results. This vigil has changed us, unified us, blessed, commended, challenged, cleansed, purified. It seems silly that it should surprise me how amazing God is, but I guess I just needed a change of focus to bring things back into perspective again. We are in different times and no matter frustrating I have found it being back in the same village, doing the same things, seeing the same people day in and day out that I have done for the first 26 years of my life, it is not the same and I need to remember that. Objective eyes. These are what I prayed for and ultimately what helps me bring my world to yours.