An Actress's Prayer

My niece, Norah, on my dad's shoulders

"The heart of a rebel
is a heart crying out for love."

-Jonathan Dorst, pastor of Grace Church, Stillwater, Oklahoma


This is a prayer I scrawled into my journal in February after watching the movie Grace Unplugged. The movie really broke me open in a new way.

So, here is a little peek inside the mind and heart of a struggling human creative type. It might not be pretty or polished, but it's real.



I think a lot of my battle has been with myself. I am afraid to live a life that is not all about me, that is not centered on me, where I am not in the spotlight. I am afraid of what is on the other side of that, afraid that it will be dull and trite and sugar-sweet on the surface, but bland in reality.

But this year's word is OPEN.

And you know what, you know who you are getting, and just how stubbornly self-glorifying I am. Only you can change me. Lord, I repent, knowing what a stubborn sacrifice I am, how quickly I will probably want to crawl off the altar.

But I am yours.

Please, Father, release my struggling and confused gifts that seem to want to break free--but release them to do your will alone, completely OPEN to you. (Even at this, I can hear my heart saying, "All? Really? Can't we just hold back a part?")

I am tired of this struggle. Please--oh, I am so scared and unsure of saying this--but please refine me. Please give me the wisdom and discernment I need, and/or whatever else I need. But mostly, help me to love you with all my heart and all my soul and all my mind and all my strength.

Help me to love you first. [The word "first" had three underlines in my journal.] I admit that I am scared--maybe terrified even--of what the cost will be, what I will have to give up. But, Daddy, please teach me to trust you.

I love you,
Elizabeth



On the next page, I jotted down a quote from A.J. Michalka, who played the title character of Grace in the movie:

"Being in this industry, there's a lot of letdown, a lot of rejection, and it's okay when you have the Lord. It's okay, just knowing that no matter where we are in our lives, all we ever need is the Lord's love, and that never goes away."