What’s funny is, since Sunday, I’ve been preparing in my mind what I was going to write about this week, perhaps using this blog as a forum to air out my teeny weeny soapbox (shame on me!).  My topic was actually going to be a question:  Which is worse:  Saying “No” or Letting Go?  BUT, the spirit meant for me to do otherwise.  In a sense, I was lovingly reminded yesterday that this blog is not about me at all; each week I have relied on my memories of mom and the Spirit of God to lead me.

This week was to be no different.

In my Devotional Literature class this semester, I have my students (during the last month and a half of the class) on a 50-day Spiritual Journey wherein they are required to read, answer questions and then submit journal responses (via a blog that they’ve created) to 25 different authors throughout history.  The textbook I’m using is entitled Devotional Classics:  Selected Readings for Individuals and Groups, edited by Richard J. Foster and James Bryan Smith.  So from St. Augustine, Jonathan Edwards, Thomas Merton, Ignatius of Loyola, to C. S. Lewis, my students are to immerse themselves in these authors’ lives and read about their spiritual journeys.  Additionally, each week I have specifically prepared other hands-on activities for them to add to and/or (prayerfully) enrich their journeys as well.  They are to provide a separate journal response to these experiences.

The first week of the journey (2 weeks ago), I showed them a sermon from the Passion for Truth Ministries channel entitled “Life is a Journey”; last week through Monday this week, I showed them the movie Life of Pi, which was amazing. This week – yesterday – (week 3), I used the spiritual practice of “soaking prayers” to be their experience.  Soaking in the Word of God is a powerful, contemplative method of prayer that mom was teaching many of us who attended her prayer retreat a little over a year ago at St. Francis.  It is intended to be transformative.  In other words, you cannot expect to “soak” or to become saturated in the Word of God and get up from the experience being the same or being unchanged in some way.  There’s no way!

Well, mom, once again knew what she was talking about.  This was my first time since that class at St. Francis that I’ve used this method either for myself or for anyone else.  I’ve talked about it, but I haven’t done it since I was taught it until yesterday.

Let me tell you what happened.

I told the students to prepare for the day by bringing a pillow and blanket, if they wanted to, so that they would be comfortable.  Then once they got to class, I told them to surrender all of their devices for the duration of the class period which was only 75 minutes (you would’ve thought I was sending them in for a root canal . . . Lord, I had to pry the laptop away from one of them – LOL).  Once I had their undivided attention and got everyone comfortable in their spots throughout the room, I read to the them the definition of “soaking” and prefaced the experience with several scriptures, then I told them what they may experience as a result.  The last comment I made before turning out the light and moving out of the way to get to my spot too was “Enter in and enjoy.”

Then I pushed play.

From 12:35 pm to 1:48 pm, my students and I were soaked.  Once the music and scriptures ended, I spent the last two minutes reading Psalm 27 to them as they were getting up to prepare to leave, but I could barely make it through the verses.  I did eventually make it through that passage and dismissed the class, but the Spirit had so overwhelmed me as I was reading it that I just thanked God in my spirit for being ever present, for washing me, cleansing me, consuming me, reassuring me.  Throughout those 75 minutes, I had wept some, I lifted my hands in worship, I basked in memories – almost like dreams or snapshots of special moments I’ve had with people, including mom and dad and my family, that I’ve shared in the past and recently, and I slept (even catching myself snoring once!). I felt like the sponge that I told my students about in the beginning of the experience, for like the sponge, when it is introduced to a little bit of water, little bit by little bit it becomes saturated.  Not like when you submerge the sponge in a sink full of water; immersion that way is immediate.  With the soaking, especially with the prophetic and intercessory music and scriptures I chose (many of which may be found on YouTube as well), immersion was gradual, purposeful, meaningful . . . .

One of the requirements was for them not to speak once they got up; I wanted them to reflect upon the experience in silence.  Then as soon as they found a quiet place and time to sit down and write about the experience in their blogs, that’s when they were to speak through their hearts and to perhaps share with others.

Maddie, one of my students, couldn’t wait to get to her blog; she texted me a little less than an hour after the experience telling me how amazing it was and how in her life right now, she needed to be soaked and reassured of God’s presence as she’s going through some difficult times.  Leaving out of the classroom, we all had our pillows and blankets, and those coming out of another class at the same time wanted to know what in the world we were doing with these comfort objects (like the hippo in The Giver).  My response to them was that they had to be there . . . I had no words to describe the experience other than that God’s love and His presence are real.  My students are a witness.

Once again, I am indebted to Lillie Madison Jones for introducing such wonderful, transformative spiritual practices to me.  I had no idea how the experience would turn out on yesterday; in my planning for the class, the remembrance of the training I had with mom at the prayer retreat triggered the thought for an activity during this 50-day journey for my students.  I remember having a beautiful experience with soaking as well as other prayer methods at St. Francis, but the transformative part came with practical application yesterday.  And that’s how acquiring education or the learning process really is:  when you’re introduced to concepts in theory, that’s one thing.  When you put those things into practice and begin applying what you’ve learned, that’s when you see a difference being made in your life.

Your college education, for example, will lead you to a fulfilling career prayerfully.  Your spiritual walk, being enhanced by methods and practices like the ones Lillie was teaching, will lead you to a life lived abundantly.  Isn’t that why Christ came in the first place?

The Word of God assures us in John 10:9-10:

 9“I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Soak that in!

In love and charity,

Giselle