Ooh this is a long one. Did you ever notice that when you
aren’t sleeping well, you seem to dislike yourself more and more? Let’s just say that I haven’t been sleeping well and my whole “accept who you are” campaign is in the dust right now. Due to recent events, I have looked myself in the mirror, challenged the finality of death, and accepted the reality that Christ knows how it all works together, better than I ever could. It has been an exhausting week. Here is my number one question in this all… when I ask this question – I am not looking for someone to answer it. This answer has to be searched thoroughly by me and for me and ultimately for my own peace of mind, because currently, that does not exist. I am not challenging God in anyway – but seeking to understand who He is and how we all fit in to this very fragile thing called life. There are a couple of components to this. It is by no means, black and white.
If God knows our life, our death, our comings and our goings and only He can explain why our lives take the roads that they do… why do we pray for specifics? Please let me divulge a little more into the ramblings of my crazy mind. First and foremost, I 100% trust that God is still on the throne, he remains the air I breathe, but I decided a long time ago that I would never do something or believe something because someone told me so. All throughout our lives we are taught to pray for things. Your family, your finances, your addictions, your faith. All of it - we take to the cross and we cry out to God in prayer because it is what we hold in our hearts. Let’s use an all too familiar example. A woman has been blessed with a child that she prays for everyday. Prays for their safety, for their relationships, for their happiness, for their success – basically for anything that their life is involved in. Then suddenly that child dies. Can we assume that Christ had always planned to take that child from this world at that moment and that mother’s prayers were never considered? Because then, if they were considered, would God have to have change his mind? This has been my struggle for quite some time as a Christian. I am not doubting who God is or in his power or any of that. I simply seek to understand WHY we are called to pray if our life and death are written out prior to us even being created. I pray a lot. I always have, even when I
wasn’t walking with God, I prayed. My prayers are more like little conversations with God all day long. So here is one part of a conclusion that I have worked on as far as prayers… We have really close friends or family that we trust our everything with. We go to them and tell them our hurts, our fears, our triumphs, our joys – knowing all the while they cannot give them or take them away. We simply become satisfied in sharing them with that person because they are a part of you and they go through them with you. I have never gone to someone and poured my heart out with the expectation that they will “fix” the situation. You share your hurts with people so you can lean on them, and they help you stand when you need it. That is one part of prayer that I get. I need to go to God in the hard times so that he can help me stand – because there are times that the only thing I wanted to do was lay down and die. I needed Him to help me stand – that is where my relationship with God becomes real and becomes so necessary. Of course I need him in the good times – but when I am down for the count – He is the only one that can pick me up. So that said – I truly understand how to pray for comfort and for peace.
As a mother my heart bleeds for Anthony. Being his mom is the single most amazing thing I have ever known. I pray for Anthony’s safety, I pray for grace, I pray for wisdom, I pray for individuality, I pray for compassion, I pray for his relationship God, I pray that he
doesn’t dabble in the evil of this world, I even pray for the woman he will one day marry. It is ingrained in me as a Christian and as a mother that I pray for all of these things. I know that my mother has prayed the same for my siblings and I. So when does prayer become reality, opposed to wishes? I know that my mother is so proud of me and she always tells me that. I thank God for her because I was taught my entire life how important being a praying mother is. It is something that I learned as a result of her doing it for us and although I may not understand it right now – I know it serves its purpose. I pray now, because I saw my mother do it. I still see her with her bible and praying daily. I have physically seen my mother cry out to God for our safety, and our happiness. I have been through some rough things in my life. She always prayed that I would not dabble in the evil of this world. I was the wild child out the 3 of us for sure. So why, despite my mother’s prayers and even my own, was I not spared the grief and torment I have endured? As a young child and now as an adult. I am not playing the martyr and my pain has been no more significant than anyone else’s, I am just trying to comprehend why her prayers were irrelevant. I understand that I make my own decisions, but as a child – you rely on your parents and ultimately their prayers. Anthony is just coming into his own relationship with God. But it is my job as a mother to pray for him. When he gets older, it will be his responsibility too. He will make decisions and some of them will be bad. Decisions that may affect his path in life. So, I will pray for him forever, even when he can pray for himself. My faith is not shaken in any way by the events of this past week. I know there is evil in this world and I know that we see it whether we are Christians or not. But where and how does prayer affect it?
Elly…
I am going to take a break and talk about Elly for a little bit here. For anyone that ever knew Elly – knows that she was a wild child. She feared nothing and no one and she in fact – stared fear in the face and I believe she won. Elly was incredible. There is a story that not very many people know about Elly. Without detailing the whole story, I went to a game that Elly was
cheerleading at and I took her out after to have a girl talk. One thing Elly said that will stick with me forever was that she was never going to pretend to be something she
wasn’t. She then added, “including pretending be a better Christian than I am”. That is as real as it gets, in my opinion. Elly loved God, there is no doubt about that. But she was never going to put a show on for you or anyone in that regard. She never pretended to be something that she was not. I envy her for that. She made you laugh, and even though she was younger, it never felt that way. I loved Elly. Last year for my
bday Elly came out to celebrate for a while. Well, I chose to drink and I picked a fight with her. Her and about 5 other people. A stupid fight. Something that I will regret forever. My last words to Elly in person
weren’t kind. That is what Elly and I did. We bickered – about dumb things. This time was different because I chose to drink. I chose that, no one else – just me. This year as my birthday just passed, the only thing I wanted to do was relive last year. Not because I want to be younger or I
hadn’t lived enough in the past year or any of those usual reasons. I would go back and tell Elly that I loved her, that I was proud of her, that she was someone that made other people want to do better. She was so good to Anthony. He loved her and she adored him. But I can’t go back. I said I was sorry for it all, but never again will I get to see her in person. That is something that I will wrestle with for a very, very long time. I never thought, in a million years that Elly
wouldn’t be here for me to pick on. But when that plane hit on Thursday night, reality also came down harder than anyone wanted to know. I find myself thinking that it took her death to see how much she lived.
I know her family very well and her parents are fantastic. I used to attend Chris
Kaunser’s (Elly’s brother) church and Marilyn (Elly’s mother) spoke one day on a mothers heart. I don’t remember everything she said, but at the end she had us write a note to our children. I still have it and I will give it to Anthony one day. The letter was to be our prayer for our kids. We actually wrote out specific things we pray for. It was then that I actually realized how badly I need to pray for Anthony. That it was my duty as a mother. Aside from my own mother, Marilyn
Kausner taught me what a mothers heart was. That was 4 years ago. Last week, I watched Marilyn lay her daughter to rest. This is where my heart and my head conflict. I know that I know that I know, that God knew that plane was going to come down a half mile from their house, and he knew that Elly would be on board. I don’t understand why. Laura – Elly’s sister - is one of my very best friends in the world and I have grown up with her. I have spent some of the greatest times of my life with her, I have gotten through some of my darkest hours with her. My heart obviously breaks for her, but my heart is in turmoil for Marilyn. She prayed for her daughter, everyday. She taught others how and why to pray for their kids. So my question to God is, why
didn’t you hear Marilyn? Why did Marilyn’s prayers go unanswered? If this was Elly’s plan for her life and death, why would you have us pray for something different? If in Marilyn’s prayer time, she prayed for Elly’s safety, which I know this woman and I know she did, why then,
didn’t God say - she earnestly prayed - and in turn spare Elly’s life? It goes beyond this prayer and this person. I am trying to articulate where my confusion lies. If our every moment is know beforehand, which I believe, and we are to pray against the evils of this world and believe that our prayers impact the decision that God has already made… then how do we trust that God has made a right decision if we are petitioning him to change it. And if we are in fact making that petition, is it self-righteous of us to assume that God needs our prayers to change what he could not. These are things we don’t even talk about because it is questioning God. I agree to disagree. I think God wants us to question him. He
didn’t create us to be robots void of comprehension. He created us to bare his heart and we cannot do that without some kind of understanding of who He is and why we should pray to him.
I am no cookie cutter Christian – most people know that. I am not religious, I don’t have some unrealistic view of the world we live in simply because I am a Christian. I have a real relationship, with a real God, that allows real life to consume us at times. All I am trying to do is be someone I can live with. I can’t live with a lie and not knowing the truth is just as good as a lie. I am interested in other peoples takes on prayer. I don’t want a scripture verse – I have a bible. I don’t want the Christian response that we do not understand His ways – I already know that. Everyone interprets God differently, I believe you can learn a lot from other peoples interpretations. So please, interpret away…
