Jane: I started a new prayer journal today, a pristine notebook that beckoned me with a wide, white welcome to record my prayers in all their raw, unrehearsed glory. It follows in a line of many smeary, scrawl-filled notebooks (I'm left-handed) that capture an unedited glimpse into a faith walk that alternately falters and soars, pouts and praises, agonizes and hopes, worries and trusts. But before I began, I lingered in the landscape of a previous journal. As I flipped through its pages, I found much in which to rejoice. So many requests -- for Rich, for our single daughter, for our missionary daughter and son-in-law and their travels -- had received happy outcomes that clearly demonstrated God intersecting his grace with my stumbling-along life.
Yet other requests for family and friends,
I realized, had been answered in
ways I hadn't sought, prayers that seemed, in retrospect, almost God-forsaken. Heartfelt prayers for life -- answered with a death. Persistent prayers for healing -- answered with a recurrence. Entries I once penned with soaring hope I now read with the sobriety of hindsight.My journal reminded me of how easy it is to say “God is good” when I get what I want. But then a loved one's cancer rages or a dear friend loses a job, and it becomes a little harder to say truthfully, “Oh, what a good answer that is to my prayer.” Seeing the good in a young mom dying of breast cancer. Or an extended family member losing a spouse and then a grandchild. Or a friend getting a scary diagnosis and a pink slip. Now that's the challenge of faith.
Betsey: As you know, I write prayers too, usually in cheap Mead spiral pocket notebooks. A few days ago I was searching for a fresh page in an old notebook and came across an entry from December 2008, where I mentioned something to the effect of “Lord, I’m so tired . . .” because I hadn’t gotten enough sleep and my life just felt wearying. It made me think about how the same things keep cropping up, again and again and again. But, as you say,
we can also go back through our scribbles and rejoice in answers to prayer -- or just a good day.I’m going to need to think more about your observation about God’s goodness. But for now I will say -- maybe because I’ve been reading Job -- that just the active, ongoing, sometimes pleading, sometimes angry, sometimes just chatty communication -- the engaging with Him -- is something I believe He desires.
Jane: I agree. There's just so much mystery to God; for instance, why does he heal some and not others? Why do bad things -- and I mean, sometimes lots of bad things, one right after another -- happen to those who love him? I wouldn't be honest if I didn't admit I wrestle with this. And the more life I see, the less one-size-fits-all Bible verses work for me. I just throw up my hands and say, “God, I have NO clue what you are up to in this. Remind me again, God, that you know, and help me to accept that what you're up to is good.”
I'm often confronted with the realization that relationship with God calls for a continual recognition of and surrender to the knowledge his purposes are so much higher than mine. That kind of grappling, stretching faith permeates the tenor of King David's psalms; his searing honesty and soaring praise reassure me whenever I begin questioning why sometimes, some prayers seem God-forsaken. I'm grateful that David, with all his wonder and worry, his blunder and braggadocio, ultimately never ceases abandoning himself to the Lord. That's the kind of legacy of faith I long to reflect in these prayer journals I'm collecting through this tough yet blessed life.Have you ever experienced a time when your prayers felt "God-forsaken"?
3 comments:
No...never God-forsaken. But yes..."God, what in the world are you up to?" And I've had LOTS of opportunity in the past 3 and a half years to ask that question! More opportunities than I'D like...absolutely! But I always trust he knows what he's doing. I don't always like it, and sometimes I whine and kick and scream. But with each "opportunity" (isn't that a nice spin to put on it??) it gets easier to trust. During 2007, our "Year from Hell," I recall standing on the front porch of my friend's house a couple hours after a tornado had made our neighborhood look like a war zone. I looked down the street my house is on (I couldn't get to my house because of all the downed trees blocking the road), with a bottle of beer in my hand (yes, beer...I had a beer!), I reflected on the events of 2007 thus far. My husband was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, had extensive surgery, developed infection, packing the incision twice a day, now in radiation treatments, not able to work...and now a tornado? All of a sudden I burst out laughing (no, it wasn't the beer!) and said, "What in the world is God up to?" That was a GOOD moment in my life!
We stood in my motorhome. Everyone was gone. Off to motorcycle fun. Leaving my guest and myself alone to talk.
"Tell me about it," I said, scared. Not really wanting to hear. But needing to know.
The father of four then proceeded. He'd endured the unfathomable. Divorced, someone had broken into his ex's home, murdering everyone (including his 13 yr. old son) and stealing his 8 and 9 year old children.
He described his mindset for the weeks after that. After that moment in time when I'd seen him on the news and had, like thousands of others in our community, begun praying for him.
An unbeliever, he'd called out to Satan. Bargaining his soul for the return of his kids. Even consulted a fortune teller who told him which direction to drive on his motorcycle to find his kids. (While he never found them on that ride it WAS the right vicinity, he'd later find out.)
A couple months later, the little daughter was found. In the hands of a violent sexual predator. The little brother was gone. Lost, tortured, destroyed, in details far too ugly for ANY blog or post. And she'd had to watch.
"Why?" I asked the man. But the question wasn't "Why did this happen?" It was "Why on earth did you turn to God AFTER that?"
You see, months AFTER the daughter was returned both the father and the little girl got baptized and began attending church. I wondered at the timing of the "after-the-fact-come-to-Jesus" meeting in his heart. Why AFTER?
We all hear of those handy-dandy jailhouse conversions. But rarely, if ever, of those who seek God AFTER the storm is over. AFTER the crisis is done and they don't, well, "need" him anymore.
But this man did. And his reason shook me.
"I called out to Satan," he said, his face soaked with tears and as easy to read as a fortune cookie. "And he never answered me. He never brought my boy back. That only left me one alternative. In the end, God was all I had left AFTER all."
AFTER. A powerful word. A unique perspective. AFTER a divorce. AFTER a diagnosis. AFTER a devastation so horrific only a fool might think there was EVER a God in charge.
But, in truly thinking about his words, his changed life, I thought, hmmmmm. AFTER the cross. The cross would have remained simply two chunks of wood with a corpse nailed to it had it not been for that AFTER-part.
Maybe "after" isn't the worse thing that can happen to us. Maybe. Just maybe. Not taking advantage of the AFTER is.
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Speechless.
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