changing

Last night I asked someone to pray for me.

Monday is my scheduled day off at work. If I need to set up a doctors appointment or meet up with someone for anything other than coffee, I can always shoot for Monday knowing that I won't have to worry about work being an issue.

Every once in a while I take a weekend off, in which case I work Mondays to make up for it. My manager usually clears it with me first before scheduling. This week she didn't.

I'm leaving on Thursday to go home for a long weekend, which I am beyond excited about. I haven't seen my family since Christmas and I have yet to see the newest member of our family, my niece, Mailey, so I have been looking forward to this trip for a while. That said, I won't be working a lot this week. Understandably so, my manager scheduled me for Monday morning since I won't be getting a lot of hours the rest of the week. The problem lies in the fact that she didn't ask me first and for a few weeks now I have been seeing a therapist on Monday mornings at 10am. I was scheduled to work the opening shift: 5am-11am.

With our schedule being put up late this week and me assuming I wasn't working on Monday, I didn't bother to look at my schedule until Sunday night. This is where the wise people in my life step in and say I should have been better prepared and checked my schedule ahead of time. Yes, I know, thank you.

That said, I was really worried about how I was going to be able to pull off being at work and at my therapy appointment at the same time. I knew I had to at least try to see if my manager would let me go early because after been on hiatus for way longer than I should have been, I'm definitely anxious to get back in the routine of consistently seeing therapist. Not only that, but I had made a commitment to see her every Monday morning at 10am, and I really want to honor my commitments.

Knowing that it was partly her fault for not clearing it with me, I was still a bit nervous to ask to leave early because morning time at Starbucks is the crazy time, and I didn't want to let her down by skipping out.

Last night before I went to bed, I asked someone to pray for me. When asked what for, I said courage to talk to my manager, but I don't think that's actually what I wanted. I said courage because it sounds better than saying "pray that I can get off early," but that's exactly what I wanted... I wanted to get off early; and as if God were a genie in a bottle and prayer was the equivalent of rubbing said bottle, I wanted Him to make it happen.

The thing is, God doesn't work that way, and prayer doesn't work that way. In fact, I don't think prayer is something that we should regard as "working" or "not working." It is a way of living, a form of communication, an act of worship and an honest expression before a merciful God. It is how we live in relationship with our creator and seek to align our heart to His. The purpose of prayer is not always to ask for change, the purpose of prayer is to be changed; to stop asking the Lord for your hearts desire and start asking the Lord for a heart like His... a heart for His people.

His people meaning all people... gay, straight, black, white, yellow, red, Muslim, Jew, Christian, agnostic, atheist, republican, democrat, homeless, wealthy, suburban, urban, eastern, western, young, old, male, female... the list goes on and on and on.

There is an epidemic of hatred going on and I'm praying that God would let me get off work early today. I'm not saying that I can't express even the simplest of my desires or needs to God, I think He cares about the small stuff, but when looking at the big picture, what do I really spend most of my time praying about?

If I have to be honest, I pray mostly about what I want to happen... whether it be for me or for other people.

I pray for change, but I don't pray to be changed.



I think I'll do just that... and then go to bed because I'm way too tired to finish this.