Praying in Color: Borrowed from John W during Second Mile’s Week of Prayer + Fasting this year

Recommended for: Artist+creative types who love Jesus and want to pray, visual learners who want help remembering their prayer list throughout the day, fidgeters who find their fingers in need of occupation, minds that wander during sustained times of prayer

A Caveat: The author quotes a prayer that refers to God as “Father-Mother”, and that doesn’t jive with my theology of God as a loving and powerful Father (as he refers to Himself in Scripture), but that quoted prayer is not something that kept me from learning from the book and seeking to develop my own intimate relationship with the loving and powerful Father. I just think it’s important to be aware of things like that when we read books. Know sound doctrine.

So Far: I found a blank journal sitting dormant on my shelf. I wrote down the word “future”, and then found the tail of the e swirling out out out into a spiral. As I drew, I found myself adding color and realizing that the red represented where I’m at now, the yellow represented the hopes I have in my future as it lays in God’s plans, and the green near the center represents the seeds God planted for my future long, long ago. My overall impression from this prayer time was one of worship and awe because I came away with a renewed sense of God as Yahweh, I Am, the God who holds the past, present, and future, the God who knows what he’s doing with me and my life. Oh, and I also came away with a visual reminder that I picture throughout the day as I continue to pray. I am secure in my relationship with Jesus, and God has been building on the foundations he began to lay in my life when I was young.

Also: Using one of the illustrations in the book as inspiration, I drew a grid and prayed about my schedule. I want my days to be fruitful and productive for God’s kingdom, and I love the possibilities that each day brings to be different, so I drew different images (some more abstract that others) in each “day” and prayed through all kinds of ways that they could play out. In our culture, busy-ness is often somewhere between an impediment and a crutch, so this was a fresh, hopeful way to lay out my daily walk through life before God.

The Big Thing I’m Taking Away: I love random inspiration, new ventures, and general discovery; I struggle with consistent devotion to tasks. I am hopeful that this act of drawing will help me develop a more disciplined and less sporadic prayer life because it is tangible, it takes devoted time to complete a drawing each day*, and it serves as a visual monument to my conversation with God.

A Couple More Things: There were a couple of times in the book where she kind of made it sound like there was an intentional absence of thought+words, like she was allowing color and shape to be prayers. I have doubts about that, and I didn’t do that. I used this as a time to focus my thoughts and bring them to God. It was a time of discovery as I allowed the Holy Spirit to open my eyes, and it was a time of conversation as I prayed through what I discovered in the time of devotion. I even took time to write down the reflections that God brought to my mind during my prayer time about my future because I don’t want to forget them in the future.

*Each Day: Um, that is my goal. It has not happened yet. The first one was on February 5, and the second was today. But the cool thing is that I remember the images long after I finished the drawing. The book has examples of praying for individuals, for longer periods (like during Lent or Advent), and for praying through and memorizing Scripture, so there’s plenty to explore.

The girls have a bedtime routine: pajamas, toothbrushing, songs, prayer, sleep. The songs usually include “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes,” “Somewhere Out There,” and a church song. That’s how they say it: “Church song.”

Church song means one of the song we sing during musical worship at Second Mile. Usually Janice starts singing one and we join in. Tonight, however, Elly started. It went like this:

Elly (pretty much to the tune of “A Dream is a Wish Your Heart Makes”): Church is so helpful…

It went on to mention something about church going to the ocean. It was fun to listen to.

After she finished, I started praying. That’s my usual role, although sometimes Elly contributes. Tonight, she wanted to pray, too. I finished praying for Janice’s back+neck (maybe a pinched nerve, but definitely really sore) and that we’d be a missional family, and Elly started praying. It went like this:

Elly: Um, um, please take the bump off of Lucy’s leg and make it feel better, and help us not be afraid of things, and help us be nice, and help us be good listeners, and help us not be afraid of the dark.

I was proud that she prayed about not being afraid because of a Halloween conversation we’d had on the way home from trick-or-treating with friends on Monday night. There was a particularly scary yard, complete with crime scene tape, a wandering zombie, and a girl who jumped out from a seemingly innocuous cardboard “Happy Halloween” sign. We explained that we don’t celebrate the scary part of Halloween, and she asked why.

I hadn’t thought about it in depth, but there I was in the front seat of the car with a little girl in a Lemon Meringue costume in the backseat. I thought about how often God tells us not to be fearful in the Bible, and I want Elly to grow up knowing that we worship a God who doesn’t want us to define ourselves by fear, so I explained that God tells us not to be afraid, so it’s not something we put in our lives on purpose.

I’m glad she thought to ask God for help not being afraid, and I wonder where our future conversations about this will go.

*I haven’t posted on here since school started in August, but there’s been plenty to process. This is my little reminder to myself that I can find time to type out a post in less time than I usually assume it would take.

One of my goals for this summer is to add a Global page to Second Mile’s website. That’s been in the plans for awhile now, but it just so happened that a few obstacles slowed progress.

The biggest of those obstacles: purpose. I knew I wanted to include M3, our partnership in East Asia, and Eric and Dejah’s work with Outside the Bowl in Tijuana. However, I didn’t know why. Why should we include that info on our website? What is the use of making those connections public knowledge?

I wondered if it was enough to have them be a part of the ethos of Second Mile without being included on the website. I didn’t want the sole reason for those connections’ presence on the web to be a kind of showing off to those who might come across the site looking for a church. We don’t support those projects because we want to appear missional; we are involved in them because we are missional—which does not require the internet.

Tonight, however, I understand the purpose: prayer. When Chad talked about Philemon tonight, one of the things he mentioned was how Paul always tells the people he’s writing to that he is remembering them in prayer. Then, Billy and Erica shared their plans for mission work, and we prayed for them as we sent them out, and it clicked.

The best use of a Global page at this point is to help Second Mile know how we can remember people in prayer. Specifically, people in faraway places who are connected to this community of believers in Tucson.

Monday morning, I was praying to Jesus about stress. This summer has been a nice decrescendo into mellow days. I didn’t realize how wound-up I was at the end of the school year, but now I do, and I was asking Jesus about that.

The reality of my theology is that Jesus knows the origin of all that stress, and also that I can ask him about it. I was asking for wisdom as to how to not live in a such a way, and since then, the Holy Spirit has been answering that prayer this week.

The strangest thing about the answers? A pinata metaphor. Yes. I thought of all the stress I build up over Things That Could Be Worked On, Things Not Yet Completed, Things I Would Love To Someday Work On Or Complete, Things That Are Really More Ideas Than Actual Things But Would Make Wonderful Things If I Could Ever Get Them Beyond The Idea Stage, etc.

The pinata metaphor applies to those assorted Things as such: either break it or take it down. This summer has been a wonderful time of completing tiny little projects*, and it’s made me realize how many Things I Leave Hanging there are. Instead, I need to either get them done in a timely manner or knock them off the to-do list completely.

After asking Jesus about how not to live with so much stress, a pinata really did come to mind. Then, I specifically remember thinking about how strange yet applicable that metaphor was to my particular prayer**. Too many times I have left myself wondering which pinata to swing at, or swung*** at one while wishing I could swing at another, or kept hanging up more and more pinatas while not bothering to pick up the bat and knock a few down first.

The point of this metaphor is that I believe the Holy Spirit was telling me to guard not just my time, but my tasks. I need to be aware of Things God Would Have Me Focus On vs. Things I Think Would Be Fun And/Or Possible or Things I Wish I Could Do Now Or Perhaps Soon. I’m a dreamer who needs to keep my eyes on the path ahead of me, not up in the clouds.

*I’m keeping a Done List this summer. It’s like the opposite of a To-Do List, which I find give me a great amount of trepidation about what my future should hold. This Done List reminds that there are also Things Completed.

**I only remembered the Volkswagen commercial later. It’s not a perfect representation, but the frustration exhibited by the little boy and then the dad is pretty accurate, so I went with that video.

***The inclusion of the verb “swung” is for Christy and the other folks who asked about the past tense of “swing” at the Seeds Mtg.

You may have heard about Collin and Andy. Collin is the guy who runs a hundred miles at a time. Andy is Air Force Andy (we have our fair share of Andy/Andrews). They are relatively fresh faces at Second Mile, but they’ve already got to work helping with the community center. I thought I’d ask them how they ended up with Second Mile and why they dove in so quickly.

You guys are pretty new around here. Just how new are you, and how did you find Second Mile?

Collin: I arrived in Tucson in September 2010, but I didn’t find Second Mile until February. We were searching hard for the church God wanted us to be a part of, and we visited probably twelve other churches in the city. After not finding anywhere that felt like home, I Googled “Missional Churches in Tucson” and the Second Mile website came up. I checked it out, loved what I saw, and listened to a sermon by Chad, which of course was very impressive and challenging. Really though, God gets the credit for bringing us to Second Mile because we spent a lot of time praying that he would connect us in the right place.

Andy: As Collin said, we were both visiting churches all over the city, and I didn’t feel God calling me to any of them. By February, when Collin found Second Mile via Google, I was pretty disillusioned with churches with cool-looking websites, but I came along. I was immediately drawn by the brotherly love and the attitude of serving those around us, not just edifying ourselves in church.

This is Lucy’s brace face. She was not cool with this thing on her leg at first, but she’s warmed up to it now. She says “brace,” likes to look at the butterflies, and even helps with the velcro straps.

I figured it might be good to cover some Lucy-related Frequently Asked Questions.

How’s her leg doing?

Great. She has no idea anything is out of the ordinary. Well, except for the brace. That’s new, but she doesn’t know why it’s there. She hasn’t indicated it’s hurt. Ever.

What’s the diagnosis?

I can’t pronounce it. Janice knows how to say it, but she’s medical professional. No, it doesn’t bother me that I can’t say it. It doesn’t change anything for me, and I honestly don’t want people to look it up on the Internet and tell me anything they read about it. We trust the doctors we’re working with.

Is it cancerous?

Thankfully, no.

Does her brace function like a bionic leg, giving her, you know, super human abilities?

Regretfully, no.

Does her condition involve adamantium in her bones?

Earlier in this whole process, I joked with Janice about putting something on Facebook about a doctor’s visit revealing that Lucy had adamantium bones like Wolverine. Lucy does not have adamantium in her bones. No one has actually asked about that. Or the bionic leg.

How are you dealing with this?

The part where I had to help hold her so she could have an IV, as well as hearing the doctor say she’d probably need surgery in the future, was difficult, but other than that I’ve been okay. Janice and I have had some good conversations about relying on God, maturing as people who trust in him, and relinquishing control.

So I don’t know what helping Lu deal with this condition is going to be like. She’s going to wear braces, this and the next ones, into the future. I don’t know how that will play out. I’m not trying to anticipate it. I’m grateful, I guess, that it isn’t worse. I’ve seen plenty of examples of the fragility of life, particularly in children, lately.

So I helped Janice pick out some new shoes for Lu, Vans with hearts on them that will fit over her brace, and I remember to let her help me put it on, and I think of the Blancos who recently lost a newborn son, and I think of how well they exemplified faith in God through that circumstance, and I thank God that I have my two daughters, and I try to lead my family well.

Thanks for praying for Lucy. Our family loves you and is grateful that you talk with God on Lucy’s behalf. Thanks for praying for our peace as a family. We have experienced God answering those prayers through his character, sovereign+good. I’d love it if you could add the M3 team in East Asia to those prayers, or the community center that Second Mile is working on starting, or the leadership development that Janice and I are constantly experiencing. Lucy’s leg is just a small part of the adventure that God has for us.

I was driving to work the other day and heard a report on the impending independence of the Darfur region of Sudan. It’s one thing to hear about news on the radio. It’s another thing to read a novel/biography of one of the Lost Boys. It’s yet another to hear Derek Griffith talk over dinner at Jason’s Deli about potentially traveling to Sudan over the summer to help a friend complete a documentary on one of the Lost Boys.

Then there’s reading email updates from Alex (he’s the guy with the tree tattoo who started helping lead musical worship at Second Mile earlier this spring) about the Abyei region, a highly contested area between the northern and southern parts of Sudan. Alex is in Sudan “for drilling, hygiene trainings, bible literacy, and church rebuilding,” but is now focused on providing relief for the people fleeing the rising conflict in the area.

Yet another, yes one more, thing: Alex is excited to be there, to be doing that kind of work, and that is beautiful to hear. Yes, he is in a dangerous place, but he is helping people eat food and drink healthy water and stay safe. He is on an adventure with God, serving and leading and learning, and I’m excited for him. I pray that he can help many, many people, and that someone will meet Jesus because he’s there.

I took the day off from teaching last Thursday to go with Janice to take Lu to her MRI. I felt out of my element in every way, and seeing Lucy sitting on an adult-sized hospital bed, wearing a hospital gown made for a sixth-grader, saying a word she’d just picked up (“Suprise!”) to the nurses who were about to give her her first IV was surreal.

There was waiting, as there always is in places like hospitals. There were the second and third attempts at the IV, which, unlike the first, we helped with. Then there was the odd calm of sitting next to Janice, each of our four ears plugged, our conversation muffled, our laps covered in hospital blankets, while Lucy rested, sedated and ear-phoned, tucked inside a giant machine making a racket taking pictures of the inside of her leg.

We left the hospital at 2:45, after Lucy recovered from pentobarbital enough to recapture a groggy version of herself. (I only remember the time because Janice pointed out that it was right as my students were being released by the final bell of the day.) We thought we might hear results that afternoon, but we didn’t, so we kept waiting.

I kind of hate to do this to people, but I want to say that this post is not about Lucy or the results of Lucy’s MRI (we’re being referred to a pediatric orthopedic specialist, which I keep trying to say as “pediatric orthopedist”). This post is about God, specifically how God manifested himself in my life last Friday.

I told Janice that the best metaphor I could think of for how Friday felt was a gyroscope. She kind of laughed at me and said, “Really?”

I explained. Gyroscopes are used to keep things oriented. They are in planes, helicopters, space shuttles, etc. They spin and use angular momentum to stay oriented as they are whenever force is placed upon them.

I thought of gyroscopes because I asked God for peace and because I asked my friends to pray for peace for our family. That Friday was perhaps the calmest day I’ve had in a long time, but it wasn’t because it was an easy day. I just felt steady the entire day despite outside forces acting upon me. (The things that made it not easy are teacher-y things that might just bore most of you, so just trust me).

I was profoundly thankful as I realized what God had done that day: He directly and specifically answered my prayer for peace. I cannot say that clearly enough. I asked God for peace and I found peace in him above my circumstances.

I’ll carry that metaphor with me now, a scientific representation of how God functions as the Orientor Despite the Actions of Outside Forces.

I’m 28 years old and I’ve never had an MRI. Lucy is one-and-a-half, and she gets her first experience in with magnetic resonance imaging tomorrow. Even though I’ve been gone for parts of the last couple of weeks (2M guy’s retreat, then my trip to Regents in Austin), I’m taking the day off tomorrow while the sophomores write in-class essays and going with Janice and Lu to UMC.

The test is a precautionary measure at this point. They want to check and make sure a couple of seemingly benign growths aren’t interfering with her leg’s bone growth. Even though I know it’s just a precaution, it’s still a strange thing to take such a young person into a test like that.

We would definitely appreciate prayer for Lu’s leg and for our peace as parents. Oh, and for Elly as a big sister. She was very concerned this evening and was asking all kinds of questions that were simple to answer, yet difficult to explain to a three-year-old.

We believe God is in charge of everything, and that he wants us to ask us for things, so thanks for praying for healing and peace.

Sometimes when I write feedback to students on their papers, I end up giving them a numbered list because that happens to be the best way to keep the thoughts straight as they spill out of my head.

1. I finished Leaders Who Last awhile back and now I’m on the second go-round for underlining and question-answering purposes. The introduction includes a list of what “finishing well” for a leader can look like. These are the adjectives in that list:

• vibrant
• rich
• solid
• good
• lasting
• God-honoring

Those are beautiful words when applied to a life. I would like those to apply to mine when I am an old man and looking back on my time on earth.

2. The foreward to the same book includes this quote from Mark Driscoll:

The combination of the fast growth of our church, my lack of experience, and the immaturity of our organizational structures left me completely overextended. I was working out of my area of gifting, and it was literally breaking me, though I was only in my mid-thirties. My adrenal glands were fatigued. I could not sleep. I was seriously discouraged, exhausted, and frustrated.

My note in the margin next to those words (a warning): “A reminder that this is possible.” I am 28 and would like to have fully functional adrenal glands in a few years.

3. Eugene Peterson says this about the church he shepherds in The Contemplative Pastor:

They live and they sin and they rebel and do stupid things, but the courage and the grace are there almost every day. … I think my characteristic feeling at the end of the day is a sense of awe about what God is doing with these people.

When we moved to Tucson to help start Second Mile, I had no idea what to expect. It has not been easy. Difficult conversations. Growth through challenges. Coming alongside people we love dearly while they weather storms. Watching people come, go, come, go. But I look at what God has done with all the people he has added to this community of believers, and I am in awe. It’s a beautiful thing.

4. I drive up Craycroft everyday with the Santa Catalina mountains in full view. Sometimes, if the rare clouds in Tucson filter the sunrise just so, the mountains are lit up pink and orange and purple and it is beautiful. Even when that is not the case, I remind myself that they are still mountains, and mountains are not an easy thing to make.

5. I like things simply, clearly stated. “You make beautiful things” is the kind of phrase—a compact prayer of the broadest application, I suppose—that functions like an anchor as life swirls about. God began history making beautiful things, and he has not given up that business since.

God is highlighting something in my prayer life: I ask to understand things quite often. Now, when I am about to say “understand” when I’m praying, I camp out on this passage for a bit:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

I don’t think understanding is a negative thing. Jesus said we should love God with all of three things: heart, soul, and mind. My brain is definitely part of my worship of God, but what is it that I’m trying to accomplish by asking to understand?

I don’t want to tell God that I just need to Get It and then I’m good, thanks. I don’t want to count on my own ability to break down a given situation and come up with a solution. I don’t want the only kind of peace I know to be the kind that comes from being able to understand what is going on.

So, whenever the word “understand” creeps up in my conversation with God, I’ve been stopping and asking him to help me live in his peace.

And I actually feel like that’s developing my understanding of God and the world. The world will always be busy. There will be plenty of difficulties to weather, problems to solve, people to cultivate, plans to execute, etc., etc. Both my heart and my mind will need guarding if I am to make it through, but my mind can’t do it all by itself.

I can’t understand everything. Not possible. But God does (notice: not can, but does). He knows the factors that lead up to every situation I’ve ever been in, and he knows the outcomes of every choice I will make. Peace comes from not needing to be the person who understands all, but worshiping the God who does.

On Thursday evening, our community spent time in focused prayer on several topics plucked from the prayer guide over the course of the week. One of those was praying for deep conversations over the coming year. I prayed and listened, and these four angles on conversation came up:

Seekers of Deep Conversation

This applies across the different areas of community that we prayed for on Tuesday and Wednesday. Community groups are a unique experience in our culture: people gathering to deliberately study and talk. We should value that and come prepared to engage in deep conversation. Iron&Iron and Moxie are ministries that bring men and women to a place where we can sharpen each other within the unique contexts of being created in God’s image both male and female, and we should look to help each other grow through conversation. Parents should explain deep things to their kids so they can grow up rooted in the gospel, not swayed by culture. College students need to hear from those a few steps ahead in life. We should evaluate our roles in all these levels of conversation and ask God to help us be people who cause conversation to be deep.

Good Listeners

Tony prayed about this, and I made a note of it: quick to listen, slow to speak. I pray that we would develop as listeners. Depth of conversation won’t happen if we’re all talking at once. We should be prepared to share and prepared to listen.

The Conversation of the City

Second Mile is growing in number, but we’re also slowly growing in age. The multitude of college students will start to become a multitude of college graduates, and I prayed that, as we mature, we are able to grow in our ability to be a part of the larger conversation of the city, to be a part of the fabric of Tucson. Chad always talks about waking up in the morning and saying, “I am not ashamed of the gospel.” On Thursday night, I heard Daniel ask God to help us to “truly, genuinely not be ashamed of the gospel.” This seems to be our part in that city: we share the gospel with Tucson.

Conversation with God

When we were first writing up our core values, the phrase that came to mind for prayer was “gift of communication.” That statement has evolved to being “thankful that God lets us live in conversation with him.” I pray that we deepen our conversation with God in both directions. We should bring him deep things. Pain. Questions. Uncertainty. Hope. Joy. We should also listen for deep things. Direction. Peace. Vision. Forgiveness. Redemption.

Yesterday, Second Mile prayed about personal and relational clarity. The big theme for me was kind of a new one for me to process through: worrying. I’ve never really been a worrier, but I’ve experienced a significant increase in weight on my shoulders over the past few years, and I’ve noticed I’ve developed the strange and unenjoyable habit of tending to play out negative scenarios in my head.

I don’t come by that naturally. School is the best example of my modus operandi: I was the student who just went to class, took notes, learned what I could learn, took the test or wrote the paper, and trusted the entire process to end with a positive result. I didn’t play out What Ifs in my head concerning this question or that grade. I just did it.

But all that depended on me at that time was me; now, it’s not. I have a wife and two daughters. I help lead a community group of a dozen or so, a core spiritual community of roughly fifty, and larger church network of somewhere around 100-120*. Professionally, I teach 92 students spread across five classes (68 sophomores learning about English, plus 24 freshmen in my Bible class).

I can’t really explain why I started to anticipate problems, and I can’t pinpoint when the inclination began, but I became aware of it while asking God about clarity for me in the here and now. My brain tends toward picking about the Whys and Hows of any given situation, and I guess I started to see an exponential increase in the number of situations, and, most importantly, realize that negative results were a) more possible and b) further from my control.

In school, I could directly handle results: listen, study, work, answer, done. As life expanded, I saw that it was more difficult to cultivate positive outcomes, but I still tried to retain the same amount of control. I tried to work a much more complicated system with the same mindset, and that doesn’t work. God has been taking me through a process that culminated yesterday in me acknowledging that I rely on myself, not on him, to handle many difficulties that (might) arise.

That does not result in joy. It results in feeling like the Titan depicted above, Atlas, he who was sent to hold up the celestial spheres. Some say that Atlas symbolizes endurance, but I worship a God who says to let him help with burdens, not one who banishes me to hold them up forever, hoping to find someone to pawn them off on.

The key to this thought process is that I know God has given me responsibilities. He’s not a God who invites people to slack off while he takes care of everything. I know that he says not to be anxious, to bring life to him and live in peace from him. It seems like the “where he’s taking you”** for me is living in his peace while I live in responsibility for the network of people I help lead.

The strange thing about the above paragraph is that I wrote, “for me is a journey to understanding” before deleting it. The passage I linked to, a chunk of a letter from Paul to the church in Philippi, specifically says the peace he was talking about, God’s peace, “surpasses understanding.” It doesn’t necessarily make sense or have anything to do with living in peace because of logical reasons. It simply says to make the pattern of my life one of prayer and thankfulness, and peace from God will protect my heart and mind—that which worrying damages above all else—from the chaos that life can be.

He doesn’t say there will be no difficulty. He doesn’t say that I will not need to face responsibility. He says I can talk to him and he will rescue me and delight in me.

That does not result in burdens. That results in joy.

*With different levels of actual personal engagement, of course, but I do feel the importance of all those levels of church leadership.

**From Monday’s prayer guide: “Ask God to remind you of where you have been and where He is taking you. Pray that God would continue to refine your character. Ask the Holy Spirit to give you a fresh perspective of the transformation that is taking place because you are a child of God.”

Keith teases me sometimes about the (in)frequency of my blog. I equated that with the recent lunar eclipse. Those happen about twice a year.

I like to blog because it helps me process life, but often life is too much to allow time to sit down and type out coherent thoughts.

With this post, I’m ahead of the lunar eclipse pace, and I’m going to try and blog each day of this week to go along with the themes from the prayer guide and the directions my prayers go.

I just finished putting the guide for Second Mile’s 2011 Week of Prayer online. I’m pretty excited about this year, and the one overarching prayer that keeps popping into my head going into this week is that I hope Second Mile is joyful during the unique experience that will be the next seven days.

There will be fasting (from food as well as other things, such as coffee or Facebook or sports or ___________), but I hope we see this as a joyful time, not a time when we trudge through a week deprived of ___________, just needing to make it a few more days until we can yet again have or do something that we decided not to have or do between January 23 and January 30.

I hope we all live in the joy of knowing that God is active in our community, that he is God of our city, that he is moving in the lives of men and women and even children, that he is expanding our connections across borders, that he wants Tucsonans to know him and love him and be loved by him.

I hope we experience that joy when we pray alone in our rooms or cars, on walks to class or breaks from work. I hope we experience that joy when we pray with our kids, our friends, our spouses, our community groups, and the whole of Second Mile. I hope we are joyful because God lets us talk with him and even join with him in making his plans happen for the next year.