Praying with Helen All This Time

I was away last weekend on a retreat. It was scheduled a while back and came right on time in so many ways for me. While I wanted to be with you all here at Grace to bless our dear Helen, I needed to be away with myself even more. 

I started working here at Grace in December of 2020. Since everything was closed, I didn’t meet so many of you until many months after I started. I’d heard a lot about Helen Christianson from Rev. Amy and Rev. Anne, notably that she was “so close to God, in and out of prayer” and that she was quite possibly the kindest, most affirming and generous person, ever. We would speak on the phone sometimes, but we didn’t work together in the office until it was safe enough for that kind of thing, probably late in 2021 or even into 2022. 

As I was going through a very difficult time in my life then, sometimes I’d come into Bourn Hall carrying it all quite heavily. Helen would always see it, and ask me…and our conversations turned into prayer, with Helen holding her hands on my head and praying deeply with and for me. Every time she’d end with the most profound blessing. These times with my dear friend were so healing and, God knows, exactly what my heart needed. 

Fresh off retreat, I sit in wonder that God loves me just as I am, not as I could be. “The glorious message of scripture is that we do not have to be perfect for our Maker to love us,” Madeleine L’Engle wrote. “All through the great stories, heavenly love is lavished on visibly imperfect people.” L’Engle cited Jacob, the son of Isaac and Rebekah, who lied his way to a blessing. In L’Engle’s reading, “Scripture asks us to look at Jacob as he really is, to look at ourselves as we really are, and then realize that this is who God loves.”

Pause here and take a deep breath with me, because I am totally fine with looking at Jacob as he really is. But looking at myself? As I really am? Ummm…well. “God did not love Jacob because he was a cheat, but because he was Jacob,” L’Engle continues. “God loves us in our complex is-ness, and when we get stuck on the totally virtuous and morally perfect person we will never be, we are unable to accept this qualified love, or to love other people in their rich complexity.”

In other words, God’s love is there for us the whole time. We need not earn it. We act as if we can perform our way to absolution and worthiness. We often think we need to wow the Almighty into wanting our company. Where do we think THIS notion comes from? Not from God. Could God really be so gullible? Is the Divine so easily impressed with us? Let us not distract ourselves from the beautiful truth and the gorgeous reality: God already loves us. 

One of the ways I’ve come to this conviction since I arrived at Grace is praying with Helen. She often has this capacity to see me as God sees me, love me as God loves me and she mirrors this back to me over and over. She has seen past the messes I make, the trouble I find myself in, the doubt that perches on my shoulders and reflects “Beloved Me” back to me in prayer, in the presence of God, reliably showing me the heart of God. 

Helen has done this for many of us, and if you’ve never prayed with her, let me tell you she has done it for you too even though you didn’t know it. Helen Christianson has made intentional, personal prayer an anchor here at Grace for over 30 years in Bourn Hall. She still does this. This kind of deep and unwavering prayer is part of our identity here at Grace, in large part because of her ministry and all those of you who have prayed with her. 

When we show up in prayer, we are seen as we are by a God who loves us. Let us come to God as we are. Let us have enough courage to come to each other, asking to pray together, as we are. Let us all learn to receive each other with grace and compassionate reflection as our friend Helen has shown us all these years. It is our identity at Grace, it is our strength.

In thanksgiving for Helen’s presence here, her friendship and the power of being seen and supported in prayer, 

Sarah Christopher 

Associate Pastor