Rain

Written: January 26, 2008
2:30-3:00 AM

I absolutely love the rain. I am sitting in my apartment at 2:30 in the morning. My roommates are fast asleep. Our apartment is cluttered and in disarray, revealing the day’s activities, but rain is pouring down outside and I am sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, my work illuminated by a single table lamp. It is restful. I have always attributed rain to newness in my mind... as if the old was being washed away and something new would rise with the sun the next morning. This is all sounding very poetic, but I do think there is something metaphorically beautiful about rain and what it represents. God brought rain for 40 days to cleanse the earth. Illustrators of Disney’s Lion King used rain to signify the washing away of an old king’s order as the new king took his place. Even rain in romantic movies always suggests a change of some sort. It is the “thinking period” of the movie. 2:30 AM in a seminary apartment is my “thinking period.” The events in my life over the past week have been eventful. Starting classes this week brought instant syllabus shock as I began to calculate the hours each demanding course would suck from the time I should also be dedicating to the church, or friendships, or relationships, or family, or.... It all became very overwhelming. Nineteen hours is probably ridiculous. This I know.
However, after the rush of the day has calmed and the homework has been put away for the evening, there is relaxation in the silence of the apartment and the steady fall of rain outside. This week was not only marked with the beginning of a new semester. By the middle of the week, I also found myself in the emergency room with a dear friend of mine who had accidentally overdosed on prescription medication. By overdose, I mean by a speculated 56 Adderoll pills. When you are only supposed to have 30 mg and you take 855, your body is bound to react. As I sat next to her in the hospital room and watched her drink two cups of gritty, tar-black liquid charcoal, I felt sick to my stomach; Not because of the substance that no one should have to drink, but because the person I was sitting next to was not my God-loving, passionate friend, but a different person altogether. As she was speaking incoherently, gasping for air, falling asleep while talking, and hallucinating people in the room, I missed my friend. A dark moment in the middle of the night, and a bag full of haunting memories drew my friend away to a dark place none of us could go. It would be days before she was back to the girl we all knew. Pastor Taylor and others have been warning that spiritual warfare has been much stronger over the course of the past few weeks. The children’s minister at Gentilly Baptist had seen the signs at the church as well and had just commented on it last week. My friend said that she felt a demonic presence in the room on the night of her flashbacks. God has been creating a sense of urgency in my heart toward fervent, extended times of prayer. I am not necessarily sure that the overwhelmed feeling I’ve been having was not something more like an oppressed spirit. My heart, emotions, and thoughts were so heavy this week.
For so long, I have neglected prayer as a bedrock fixture in my life. My personality is one that I get easily distracted (go figure). A recent personality survey taken at the last Unlimited Partnership meeting we had said that in prayer, I am easily distracted and find it very difficult to focus on particular requests over an extended period of time. I’m sure it is more a mark of spiritual immaturity in that area. Nevertheless, the Father is beginning to impress upon my spirit to begin a deeper prayer life. If my pastor, his wife, and other church friends are correct, I think prayer is going to be increasingly necessary over the next few months. Pray for us at the church. If these are spiritual attacks, they are bound to be dirty and painful.
It is exciting when the enemy feels the need to stage an attack because you know he is opposing something that is currently happening or on the verge of happening. Perhaps this is the new horizon dawning on the church, our congregation, our community, or our leadership. So, as I sit listening to the rain, I pray for Gentilly Baptist. I pray for the surrounding community struggling with life issues of finances, family crisis, post-Katrina New Orleans, violence, etc. I pray for the congregation of Gentilly Baptist who is hungry and eager to know Christ, find family, and affect the community. I pray over Dr. Taylor and the other church leadership who have labored faithfully in spite of great opposition and disappointments. I pray encouragement, strength, and support over them. I pray others will be sent to help alleviate the burden carried by the few. May God raise up servant leaders in His timing!

As always, we cherish your prayers.

Blessings,
Stefanie