Back to the Middle

I do some of my best thinking while I'm working in the yard. Maybe that is because no one bothers me when I'm working in the yard, lest I ask them to help!

Anyway, nearly six years ago, when I started working in recovery ministry, I was so certain, SO CERTAIN, that God rescued people when their lives were all screwed up. Oh my goodness, I have prayed my head off for some people in my life and the messes they have gotten themselves into. I'll bet I prayed for my Dad and his financial woes for 20 years or better. I prayed for a relative who had mental health issues. I prayed for people who were seriously ill. I prayed for people who did not know God and had no interest in knowing God. I prayed for friends and relatives and acquaintances for every reason under the sun. For all that praying, I'm not sure many of my prayers were "answered."

Then I started working with women whose lives were really messed up. And worse yet, some of them came back for 2nd and 3rd rehabs. When was God going to fix all these messes anyway? Couldn't God hear my prayers, for goodness sake? What's a person to do when it seems as if their prayers come to nothing?

Well, I won't go into whether God answered these various prayers or not. God does not need me to come to God's defense. I will just say that I moved my mind and faith wayyyyyy over to the other end of the spectrum. I said, "God is not going to sprinkle magic fairy dust over your life and make everything OK." In fact, I'll bet I said that as many times as I prayed for my Dad's finances. Somehow in the process of leaning less on "magic fairy dust" theology, I came to lean more on, "It is very likely God will NOT answer your prayer. Move on!" (How did my heart become so hard?)

I feel ashamed and embarrassed to admit this. The realization today hit me pretty hard, too. Did I somehow make a jump from "God is not answering my prayers the way I pray them " (as in, God is not a short-order cook) to "God does not answer any prayers" ???

I think I must have decided at some point it would be better not to put too much "hope" into God answering a particular prayer and focus instead on asking God for strength to endure. That's the realization I had today while I was pulling weeds and removing leaves and pine needles and digging holes for bedding plants. And I said to myself, "Hey, Tammy, God still answers prayers. Wake up!"

I don't know if you have ever moved about 180 degrees from what you once believed and then suddenly asked yourself, how the heck did I get here? I do know, however, that I need to correct my course. I need to make my way back to the "middle." I need to pray with humility and acceptance and wisdom. I also need to "risk" praying boldly again and stop worrying about being "disappointed" or "confused" if God does not respond with the solutions my pea brain comes up with. In fact, I need to stop praying solutions altogether. God wants good things for my life; and for yours; and you and you and you and you. God has an endless array of mechanisms for bringing those things about.

Now then ... does God listen? Is God in touch?

Yesterday I was trading ministry stories with my husband's aunt. I was telling her, as I often tell people, that the women I work with come and go so quickly, that their recidivism rates are so alarming and that I rarely know what happens to any of them, unless they come back for another rehab. She nodded in agreement and told her own war stories of ministry team members who relapsed ... putting the rate at something like 30 percent. Anyhow, today I was coaxing some of my ladies to get on to Sunday school when I saw a woman with a perfectly angelic face. She said, "Hi Tammy, you may not remember me, but I was at SM 3 years ago." I smiled. She was dead on, I did not remember her. I asked her name. I noticed she had her children with her. I asked, did they want to go to children's church. I asked, would she like to visit my Sunday school class?

After class, she told me she wanted to get back into church. She said, "All this time, I've been working hard and yet feeling like there was something I had forgotten. And this was it...." She even went so far as to tell me she wanted to somehow get involved in the recovery ministry.

Well ... there's an answered prayer. And doesn't God have good timing? Not 18 hours earlier, I'm telling someone that I never know what happens to the ladies I meet and bam, here's one with 3 years of sobriety. Three years! (That is huge.)

I am going to start praying again like I really believe it. I won't expend so much energy on whether my prayers are being "answered." Instead, I will trust God to work out the results and answers in God's way; and sometimes that means in ways I cannot perceive or will never know.

In the end, my Dad's financial problems were solved (he died). And others I prayed and prayed for have progressed into different life situations. Things happen. And don't you know God sits by watching it all, smiling and smiling and smiling?