Powder Room Prayers

Last week I said that for the next few weeks leading up to Pentecost I was going to share with you my experience of “stirring up” the Holy Spirit in my own life. Well, the story starts in my powder room in our house in Wauwatosa twenty-seven years ago.

I quit working to stay home with our three children. I was a full time at-home mom and didn’t know what that meant exactly. With no job description and no clear purpose anymore (job=purpose in my mind back then) I became very anxious. I won’t go into the details, but one day when I was at the end of my rope I was in the bathroom getting ready to go somewhere and I prayed. “Big deal,” you say? It was a huge deal. I had been ignoring God for a very long time. The faith of my childhood including my Catholic schooling through high school was on the back burner. And the burner was off.

Something prompted me to pray at that ordinary moment, on a week day, in my bathroom, blow drying my hair. I cried out to God, that is IF he was really there, and asked for help. Immediately I felt a warmth and a peace and it wasn’t the blow dryer! I met our extraordinary God in a very ordinary place and my life has never been the same.

Unbeknownst to me, I stirred up the Holy Spirit in that moment of despair by the simple act of praying. I know now that really the Holy Spirit stirred me up by prompting me to pray in the first place. As a result, my eyes were opened to a new life changing revelation. God isn’t just in church. And if he’s in my bathroom, he can be anywhere. I began to look for him everywhere and you know what? I found him everywhere.  The Holy Spirit opened my eyes that day.

Remember the excitement of a newborn baby? I remember it like it was yesterday. In particular was the excitement of those first couple of hours when the baby would open its eyes. That simple act caused family members to drop everything and come running.

I can’t help but think that God feels the same way about us, his children, when we open our eyes to his presence in every moment of every day. What joy that brings him as the scales begin to fall off and we recognize his ever-present love, care, and provision at work in our lives. The Holy Spirit gave me that awareness that ordinary day.

That awareness led me to a more personal relationship and an ever-growing ability to trust and surrender. Ahh…but that’s another story for another blog.

I have to go blow dry my hair.

To be continued….

Joan