I woke up not feeling ready for church. It had been a busy week, but my heart felt hard. Struggling with apathy, I went through the motions of getting ready. Although my devotion time wasn’t long, I still prayed and asked God to help me.
After service, Sunday school, and a few conversations with friends, I made my way back into the sanctuary. Catching my friend’s eye, I waved. Sharing a few words, I stood waiting for her to introduce me to her mother-in-law. Once the introduction was made, I asked if I could hug her. She said yes.
It dawned on me as we hugged and conversed that I was talking to an answer to my prayer. You see, this woman isn’t just my friend’s mother-in-law. It’s also my pastor’s mom. We, as a church, had prayed for her to get a much-needed liver transplant. After five false runs, she got her liver. I remember sending updates to our Sunday school class about how she was doing and what was happening.
Later that same Sunday, I ran into someone for whom I had been praying. In the process, I found out (unbeknownst to them) that they, too, had been an answer to another prayer I had prayed. I stopped for a second and took an inventory of a few other things in this season that I had prayed for in the previous season. I got frustrated with myself for not being more grateful. Lately, instead of continual praise for the answers to prayers, I have witnessed, I have rushed into griping about the current unanswered prayer request.
I woke up the next day after a terrible dream. Ironically, the dream helped pinpoint why my heart has been so hard. It’s hardened because I have been hyper-focused on the few things I am waiting for and am not entirely sure I will receive. I feel like I have waited long enough. Do you know the feeling? Additionally, the thought of possibly not receiving the answer I want is hard for me to wrestle with.
The dream helped me remember that I am not promised tomorrow, and neither are the people I love dearly. I cannot control anything but my actions and attitudes in this life. God calls the shots, and I am just to be obedient. Lately, I’ve had to keep surrendering my desires while simultaneously asking for the strength to ask for those desires because God tells us to ask.
I am writing this more as a reminder to myself. I want to be more intentional about stopping to thank God for the answers to prayers right in front of me. As I write this, I am thinking of my friend who didn’t know if she’d get married after losing her first husband to cancer. She did last year. I think about my other friend who is pregnant with her second child after she didn’t think she’d even be able to have kids. Every answer to prayer is done in God’s way and in God’s timing. So, in the meantime, I will keep asking Him to soften my heart and mold me into the person He wants me to be. All the while, I will keep praying and looking for the praises of the ones He has answered.
All I have is today. I don’t want to waste it worrying about what I don’t have yet and thank God for what I do have.
