Guest Blog: Nancy Jumper vs. the Prayer Path

I signed myself up for a slot in CrossPointe’s Prayer Path experience, and arrived at my appointed time with two family members. We thought we’d enter at the same time so as not to mess up the schedule. We were told that it would be a much better experience if we staggered our entry by 10 min each to make it personal. However, instead of accepting and enjoying that, it became a chief focus of distraction.

My frustration about us entering separately was all I thought about as I started through the labyrinth. The peaceful voice on the “Path Tour Guide CD” became the voice of my siren. The more she beckoned me with her silky voice to “relax and let go of the noise of distraction in my head” the more agitated I became that others were entering, but not the last of my party. By the time I got to Station #3 – where I was prompted to tightly hold a pebble in my fist, attach my cares and worries to it, then symbolically lay those in Jesus’ lap by releasing the pebble to float into a bucket of water – I realized I couldn't do it! I defiantly shoved the pebble in my pocket and carried on to the next station. At each stop the CD’s mesmerizing music, peaceful voice, and impactful activity got nothing from me but snotty responses and harried glances around the room to see if my son had finally entered.

About Station #5, I saw him enter and reverently start his journey at Station #1. This calmed my heart as I completed that stop, and I realized I needed to go back now to #3 and drop the pebble. I went to the bucket of water and tried to drop the pebble…but again failed. Still too much static in my head! Although I knew I was tainting my experience…I wasn’t yet able to let go. Off I went to continue with Station #6 – Communion. To sit on a pillow in God’s presence and prepare myself for the sacrament of communion in grateful recognition of his son’s broken body and spilled blood only magnified my inner conflict over the pebble.

I sat there a long time wrestling with myself, with Him…and with that blasted pleasant voice on the CD! I needed a reason to let go! I needed a justification! After a while, God whispered to me that there was no reason or justification in his love and sacrifice for me, he just wanted to do it. Whoa! The velvety-voiced CD lady couldn’t have said it better. When I finally came to the point of WANTING to let go, His Holy Spirit did the rest and took the angst from my heart and head. I had a lovely communion and got up to continue.

I knew my first stop had to be to go back to the afore-dreaded Station #3 and get that pebble out of my pocket and into Jesus’ lap. And this time… Success! I revisited a couple more stations as well…then moved through the maze actually engaging in what God had intended for me at each stop. Near the end I was prompted to look at myself in a mirror, take note of the image I saw, then try to grasp what God sees when he looks at me.

I found it was unexpectedly uncomfortable to stand and look at myself as I tried to think about what God saw, so I leaned to the side. When I did this, I realized that the image now in the mirror was of others around me going through The Prayer Path. I was seeing the life that was happening all around me. Stunned, I realized that is one image God sees when he looks at me. He sees the people and circumstances all around me, and how He can impact them through me.

And so when I left, I realized I’d fought the battle of the noise in my head against the experience of the prayer path. I also realized this is a familiar battle that I fight every minute of every day. Although not always accompanied by a CD directing my steps and not always victorious; I am convinced that as I fight these skirmishes, the Holy Spirit works as a knight-in-shining-armor dispatching my dragons.

Thanks for the profound reminder.

--Nancy Jumper