This morning after getting slightly irritated by something my husband did, I ran across an article about a quadriplegic who has dedicated her life to ministry and to serving others.  She was talking about how tiring it is to live life as a quadriplegic and how she does life in spite of that. Worse than the humiliation of being reminded of how very blessed I am in so many ways, was the feeling of being back. Back to the place where I wonder what right I have to complain about anything.  Back to the place where I am awakened to the fact that my husband’s shoes in the mudroom, in the grand scheme of things, is really, really nothing. Back to the place where I am frustrated and annoyed with my propensity to expect perfection from others when I am so very far from it myself.  And worse than all that, I got my holy on this morning.  I was up early and got on the treadmill and prayed. I read God’s Word before I read anything else this morning.  I asked Him to  help me look more like Him. I got my Jesus on.  So why once again am I back? I mean really? Am I really any nicer, more loving or better off following Jesus than I would be just being an everyday average run of the mill heathen?

But then I realized something. I realized that God DID answer my prayers to look more like Him today.  He DID answer my prayer to be the kind of wife He wants me to be. He allowed me to find new perspective.  He answered my prayers but yet again those answers didn’t come in the way I wanted.  You see, I want my prayers to be nicer to happen before I act like a jerk.  I want prayers to be more loving to happen quickly and easily for me (even when everyone around me is deserving of one of my really great lectures).  I want my prayers to be answered like a fairy tale where there is a misty haze and I descend from a restful night’s slumber with a radiant and angelic glow.  In my fairy tale prayer world, I can cook and I do it willingly and joyfully.  In that fantasy land my prayers are answered without any effort or mental energy on my part, my children rise and call me blessed and I’m not ripping my husband’s head off when he does something horrific (like dripping a ¼ of a teaspoon of something on the floor).  It is a great dream (there’s Starbucks there too and I didn’t make it or pay for it), but ultimately I have to remember that it is just that; a dream.  And I also have to remember that although my prayers aren’t answered the way I want them, does not mean God is not answering them.
“Dear God, thank you that back in reality you do supernaturally answer my prayers.  No, those answers do not come easily nor how I would like them to come (or on the time frame generally that I would like them), but they do come and for that I thank you.  Thank you that you are helping me in increasing measure (slow, like a snail) to be the woman you made me to be and thank you in that hard transformation my marriage is a little stronger, I am becoming a little nicer and more effective at mothering and that I am gradually looking a little more like you (2 Peter 1:5-9). And thank you that although we are all just heathen’s saved by grace, You love us and meet us in the places we ask you for help.  Amen.”
 
 
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