Inbox

There are messages in my inbox that are plagued by a specific kind of writer's block.  Those emails that I put off writing because I want to so desperately to say the perfect thing. 

Sometimes it's because I was the recipient of an epic update, or a heartfelt message, and I want my reply to do it justice.  I want to give a meaningful response, or share something semi-epic of my own.  But at the moment my brain can only handle "Hi! I exist." So I put it off.  Sometimes it's because I have something I really want to say, but I just can't figure out how to do it.  And it doesn't have to be something complicated.  It's amazing how hard it is to say simple things too.

Then it happens.  If my writer's block delays me long enough for a few other messages to come in, the email I really want to reply to is pushed down the line and disappears behind my preview pane.  From there it's out of sight, out of mind.  It could be days, or weeks, or months, before I stumble upon it again and think "Oh my goodness!  Did I really not reply to that?  I thought I had.  How did I miss it?!"

I could easily lose count if I tried to tally how many times this happens in my life.  Please tell me I'm not alone in this battle. (I'm pretty sure I'm not.)

The thing is, my friends don't care if I say the perfect thing. I don't care if my friends say the perfect thing. Letters don't have to be epic. In fact, simple messages are fantastic. I'm completely happy to receive, "Hi! I exist!" messages from my friends. All this pressure is self-induced.

And then it struck me that I also do that in my prayer life. 
 
How many times have I delayed talking to God (really talking to him) because all the other noise in my inbox drives his message down below my proverbial preview pane?  I want to say the perfect thing or impress him with an epic update.  Or I can't figure out exactly how to casually say the simple thing.  So I put it off.  Not that I'm not aware that his presence is there, or that his message is there.  But I let writer's block cripple the conversation.

But just when I was gearing up for a self-induced guilt trip, I was also struck by the reassuring thought that even if it takes days, or weeks, or months to get back to it...The simple, glorious truth is that God probably gets just as excited about my simple prayers as I do about those genuine messages. (Even the simple, "I exist" ones). 

I don't know if that all came out right.  But there you have it.  I'm challenging myself to guard my prayer life from becoming a cluttered inbox.