being there...

I didn't feel well as I crawled into bed last night. I will confess; I was unsure if I would make it to the 6am prayer meeting. In real life experience, this translates into resigning onself to not making it to the 6am prayer meeting without actually admitting it.

Fast-forward too few hours....Zoe stirs a bit so I go to check on her. On the way back to bed, I check the time. 4:55am. About the time I need to start moving to make it to the meeting. Like happens from time to time, I had the sudden sense of being invited to the meeting. Not commanded. Not guilted. Not conjoled. Invited.

Invitations are tricky things, in that they can be accepted, rejected, or in the great passive-aggressive fashion, simply ignored. If you get in invitation, you're really under no obligation - there are only two reasons you'd accept: Profound respect for the sender or a very real desire to be there.

I'm not sure which of those two motivated me this morning, but I accepted the invitation. I walked in to the prayer room tired and more than a little out-of-it. I remember thinking 'there's no reason to pretend today....there are reasons why I don't feel like being here...' and started to list them. I found myself scribbling in my moleskine journal like a castaway writing a note to put in a bottle that he was dead sure would find it's way home. I found things in my soul about myself that frustrated me far more than I realized and emptied them out on the page. I don't like that they were in there, but I'd rather have them between the black covers of that journal than in the deep recesses of my heart.

Maybe this whole invitation thing was for that. Sometimes showing up is part of winning. If that's the case, today's a winner.