A hard prayer. One of those prayers you hope to pray only once every few years max. Ideally never again, although you know that’s a non-reality this side of the Resurrection. But it’s a matter of life and death—literally—so you pray it anyways. Over and over again. Rolling it over and over again in your mind like a burning coal. Mumbling it under your breath like a curse word. Begging God for a blessing that you wish to that same God that you never had to ask for in the first place.
God heard and responded.
I cannot, of course, empirically prove that he answered, or that events occurred the way they did because I spoke some words over and over again into the ether. But I don’t care. I know what I saw with my eyes, heard with my ears, and felt with my hands. I know what I begged for. I know what happened and when. And I felt grace break into the world.
I’ve prayed a lot of prayers in my life. Less so lately, but they still bubble up in me sometimes. I don’t keep track of such things, but I can say the vast majority of my requests have gone unanswered. At least in ways that have matched my requests word-for-word, or in ways that have been intelligible to me. I’m not the most perceptive person. I suppose I ought to give God some credit for working in subtleties that I miss in my ignorance and distraction.
Go heard and responded
Why that prayer? Why not all those other prayers? I don’t know. The older I get, the more I believe that “why” is a dumb question when it comes such things. Mystery is a reality—as real as anything science can prove. Much like love. You can’t test it in a lab or prove it with a theorem, yet it’s the realest thing there is.
God heard and responded.
God is love, and love listens. Every now and then my flailing attempts at prayer remind me of that reality.
