a prayer

God,

Because I’m one of the few people in the world who has a truly good man for a father, I shouldn’t have a problem thinking of you as my Father, or believing that you, too, are good.

But as you know, I often do.

My dad sends me encouraging emails, and listens to me process my problems, and recently lugged a hydrangea plant from Cincinnati and then planted it in my flowerbed while wearing his work clothes. I know if I ask him for something good like help or protection (or a hydrangea), and it’s in his power and in my best interests to give it to me, he will give it with delight.

But when I ask you for those things, I don’t believe you’ll really answer. If good things happen, all too often I assume they would have happened anyway (the rain falls on the righteous and the unrighteous, etc. etc.) or that I made them happen. If not-so-good things happen, I blame you. (Yes, I know it’s irrational.) And when I don’t see immediate results in either direction, like RIGHTNOWPLEASE, I assume you’ve ignored my request.

So I wanted to say, as I sit tiredly in this Barnes and Noble after a day of shoveling mud and throwing away the waterlogged contents of a neighbor’s house, that I am sorry.

I’m sorry because I just realized, sitting here, that the house I so wanted last year, that I spent days mourning when another family outbid me, is very close to Old Hickory Lake and those owners—besides paying more each month than they should be—are probably bailing water. You said “no” on that prayer and now I see at least one reason why. Thanks.

I’m sorry because that job I hated and prayed about whether to leave—well, you eventually answered definitively (it doesn’t get any more clear than “the boxes are down the hall”) and you got me eight weeks of severance pay in the process. Thanks.

I’m sorry because a couple of those guys I wanted to have relationships with during the last decade (good Lord, and I mean that literally, have I really been dating for 18 years? We’re going to have a separate talk about that…) would NOT have been good matches for me long-term. I was too blinded by infatuation to see it at the time, but you knew and protected me from mega heartbreak by allowing some miniature ones. They didn’t seem so small at the time, but I get it now. Thanks. And at least one of them lost all his hair, so there’s that.

It would be nice if, occasionally, I didn’t have to wait years to see how you’ve answered. Perhaps a start would be for my prayers to be more in line with your will, so you didn’t have to say no so often. And it would be good if I could remember this so I don’t doubt your goodness quite so much the next time you do say no. We can talk about that stuff later, too. But for now—thanks.

me