One thing I could always count on was morning prayer. Even when things went wrong, bouncing around seem to be my middle name. Sometimes we moved across town only to move back downtown. Only to slide back over to the east of the city. The one thing that remained constant was prayer.
I can remember the all night prayers huddled around the living room. I can remember mama and her holy oil. Glued to the walls and metallic wallpaper. I can remember the smell of castor oil and frankincense. I can remember the pouring of water in ceramic bowls. Two of my mother’s bowls were split down the center.
Crackling of waters in clay.
We stood, we bowed, we laid prostrate,
we gave our prayers to faith,
we surrendered those days,
where the nightmare seemed to creep behind those prayers we prayed
here we are counting broken-ness, as our eyes grew legs searching for the sun.
there we are, staying all night if we had to, until the fetters of our minds were done.
some said, “it didn’t take all that” but we prayed
to keep our sanity,
some said “they didn’t have time to pray” but mama said she “could pray any time, anywhere. In whisper, softly and moaned. Through song, until the prayers got down to the bone.
we prayed while our faith seemed weak and worn out
we prayed with no money in our pockets
we prayed together, we prayed alone
we prayed with eviction notice in our hands
we prayed picking iron beds and recycled soda cans
we prayed…
and I still believe miracles happen when you pray.
Yesterday I felt like my writting had hit a snag, okay, okay a slump. What- ever this is, I know can write my way out. God always makes a way out. Now that ‘s not to say, there isn’t spilled milk or crying, going-on over here. I’ve done plenty. As the old saying goes, no need crying over spilled milk. I guess the writer forgot to add, when there is spillage and honey there will be spillage.
Nobody knows how far the spill spreads, a little here, a little there. Feels like I’m swimming around in it. One small drip into a thousand more, cascades off the light pink-brown table down onto the brown rustic wooden legs seeping into kitchen cracks. I’m running around looking for a clean dish rag. Why? I don’t know why?
I know this makes no sense but that’s just the way life is. There’s the car that won’t start so I walk my kids to the school bus, only to find the milk still leaking. My neighbor stops me to tell me, that the doctors have found a small tumor in her throat. Milk still leaking.
I just need God to come through, for my neighbor, my family and everyone else around me, even those reading this right now.
As I’m cleaning and praying.
I couldn’t use my kitchen towels because my seven-year old’s glue stick project was fully occupied with slimy goo. Pasted in red letters, Happy Valentine’s mushed in-between.
I thought of the next best thing. Hey no judgment! These things happen, when the milk is being spilled.
I found some old shirts, thick enough to absorb a gallon of -precious jewels like this.
There’s nothing reuse-able about God’s holy spirit
God I know you can hear it, the cry of your people
Krissy Mosley Ministries 