I love to write. And I love to write almost as much as I love tea. And I love tea almost as much as watching movies that speak to my heart.
So you can imagine what happens when these three loves of mine perfectly align. Writing, as I sip a cup of tea over a chick flick of some sort. *bliss*
It just so happened that a few days ago this rare occasion occurred. My movie of choice? Anne of Green Gables. This was a childhood favorite! When I was a girl, I’m sure the prospects of young love drew me into the storyline. Or perhaps the feel-good characters who brought such a wholesome series of books to life on the screen. Then again, it could’ve been Anne’s vivid choice of vocabulary that had my young, imaginative mind so enthralled.
But something else I’ve loved and continue to love about the movie are the memorable quotes that become a part of me. One of the more subtle yet captivating lines is one that Marilla speaks to young Anne just after her elaborate apology to Mrs. Lynde. “Save your thoroughness for prayer. And the praying that counts is the praying that’s sincere. God does not want you as a fair-weather friend.”
I now type this through a memory laden with guilt. For years God and I were tight…when I needed Him. I never understood the true meaning behind relationship. I honestly thought that praying was a means to an end. Not to stay in constant contact with someone I couldn’t see, but to reach out to His comfort in desperation when my parents were fighting or my grandmother was about to die or when that boy was breaking my heart.
The funny thing about it all is that God still heard me. My prayers were sincere. They were thorough. And He did answer. But He was only my “friend” because I needed Him to be at the time. Fair-weather or not, I admit that there was absolutely no consistency with my connection to God.
It wasn’t until I truly understood why Jesus died for me that my fair-weatheredness (is that a word?) took a turn for the better. I was aware. I was grateful. I was absolutely captivated by the power of Christ at work in my life and was brought to tears at how long it took me to get it. If there was anything that needed to be thorough it was my relationship with Him.
It wasn’t a profound revelation. It’s quite simple, really. I need God everyday for everything in every circumstance. Without Him I am nothing. I am a shell with no purpose or meaning behind it. I feel like Anne when she says that she is “well in body, though considerably rumpled in spirit.”
How often can we appear to be walking through life “well in body” – giving the impression that we’re doing splendidly? But so often our spirits are rumpled on the inside, crying out for something more. This is how we work ourselves into the “depths of despair” as Anne calls it. We are without God’s peace. But we don’t need to be.
Again, Marilla says it best. “To despair is to turn your back on God.”
No matter our circumstance or how rumpled we feel our spirits have become we are to petition God with a thoroughness that lays even the tiniest of concern at His feet.
With our thoroughness comes His peace. And it will guard our hearts and minds, always…
