Thought of this song by Crosby, Stills & Nash after receiving some disappointing news regarding two of my children’s higher education aspirations. Also, I stand corrected on last week’s song reference, In the Bleak Midwinter, which a music lover informed me was originally a poem written by 19th century romantic poet, Christina Rossetti, and set to music some years later. I just knew it as a Christmas song I loved.Getting back to a different genre altogether – most definitely from the 20th century – the notable 1960’s.
I began to reflect upon my disappointment in the aforementioned news and concluded that I was being both limiting in my beliefs as well as selfish. I wanted to feel vindicated from all of the mistakes I have made as a mother – somehow believing the positive responses from institutions would set things right.
Hmmm…don’t think it works that way. As if it would be a feather in my cap, not theirs. ‘Yeah, my kid got into…’ There are far worse ways to complete that sentence (jail, for instance).
I like to take the long view.
I have to say as I have coated all four of my children’s futures in prayer – under the umbrella of Master, Mission, Mate – I wonder if God has been listening. Heck, sometimes I question whether He is even there. Why? Because I don’t get the answers I am looking for? He has been more evident in these last 18 months than any other time in my life. And I have the audacity to question that now?
Yes, I do. I am human.
Thank God, quite literally, for my support network, the core of which are my sisters and dearest friends – not mutually exclusive, by the way. My sister, Margaret, shared what she has been recently reading in preparation for a small group study. It was poignant, and I asked her to send me a few of the gems she had mined. One of the misconceptions on prayer made me laugh, (sort of) : Prayer is to convince God to implement our ideas.
Gulp. Another perception rang searingly true – both are from Living a Praying Life by Jennifer Dean:
Your helplessness is your best prayer. It calls from your heart to the heart of God with greater effect than all your uttered pleas. He hears it from the very moment that you are seized with helplessness, and He becomes actively engaged at once in hearing and answering (this) prayer.
I am reminded of another book I haven’t read either, at least in its entirety: HELP, THANKS, WOW: The Three Essential Prayers by Anne Lamott. Uttering help is so simple yet so powerful. I saw a friend’s post on Facebook last week, ‘…continue to sometimes worry about the outcomes…’ For better or worse, I wrote back, ‘my mantra: try not to be attached to them.’
But do I live that? Noooo. Well, I make an effort. It’s baby steps, right? Asking God for help means we are not really attaching ourselves to the outcome – OUR outcome. According to Dean, prayer is what sets God’s will in motion on earth. I once heard that being in the center of that will is not the safest, but the most dangerous, place to be. Yet how we long for things to be safe and settled and … certain. My favorite devotion from My Utmost for His Highest by Oswald Chambers, in fact, has to be ‘The Graciousness of Uncertainty’. Here is an excerpt, entirely worthy of consideration:
Certainty is the mark of the common-sense life: gracious uncertainty is the mark of the spiritual life. To be certain of God means that we are uncertain in all our ways, we do not know what a day may bring forth. This is generally said with a sigh of sadness; it should be rather an expression of breathless expectation. We are uncertain of the next step, but we are certain of God. Immediately we abandon to God, and do the duty that lies nearest, He packs our life with surprises all the time. When we become advocates of a creed, something dies; we do not believe God, we only believe our belief about Him. Jesus said, ‘Except ye…become as little children’. Spiritual life is the life of a child. We are not uncertain of God, but uncertain of what He is going to do next. If we are only certain in our beliefs, we get dignified and severe and have the ban of finality about our views; but when we are rightly related to God, life if full of spontaneous, joyful uncertainty and expectancy… Leave the whole thing to Him, (and) it is gloriously uncertain how He will come in, but He will come.
Amen.
Interestingly, not long after giving a presentation on Haiti last week to a local, high school sociology class – about which I was truly nervous – I gazed skyward and silently offered, ‘What’s next, Lord? I do not wish to live a complacent life. Bring it on’. An answer of sorts came the next morning in the form of a tearful phone call from one of my children. ‘Another opportunity to increase your faith, Caroline’ may have been the message God was sending to which truthfully, I replied: Darn it!
Then: Help!
On Easter morning I read more of Chambers’ insights drawn from Philippians 2 that we must get the mind of Christ regarding the person for whom we are praying – including ourselves, I would add. WHOA. If implemented, would this not radically alter the way we intercede for others and pray for ourselves? How can we possibly accomplish this without divine intervention? We need help to…pray! I suppose it’s not only OK, but downright essential, to be helpless in our prayer life in which, ultimately, we need aspire to persistence, not eloquence.
And persistent prayer may just transform our helpless hope into formidable faith.
– Caroline Watkins
Some of my favorite prayers: “Lord I believe; help my unbelief.” “Help be be the best that I can be.” “Help me to honor you.” “Be with me.”
Mike Wallace, in an interview which i saw aired shortly after his death, said that he asked Mother Teresa what she says when she prays, to which she responded “Nothing, I just listen”. Wallace then asked her if God answers, to which she responded “yes”. “And what does he say?” asked Wallace. She replied “Nothing, I just listen.” And that, my friends is the best prayer of all.