No Other Prayer

To Be Near Unto God by Abraham Kuyper is a series of devotional reflections on Psalm 73. Today I read number ten, "Seek Ye My Face," in which Kuyper meditates on the various ways and depths of experience of knowing God. He distinguishes between knowing God in a doctrinal and in a mystical way.

In looking at the language that we use to speak about knowing God or knowing another person, Kuyper says, “The face, the countenance speaks; speaks by its entire expression, but especially through and by the eye. The eye is as a window of the body through which we look into another’s soul, and through which he comes out of his soul, to see us, scan, and address us.” It follows, he suggests, that the “face of God” is a prominent image in our seeking Him and his seeking us: “…our walk with God could not be illustrated otherwise than by the privilege of being permitted to meet God face to face.”

In the sweaty, selfish, rude world that I inhabit, a world of physical realities like dirty dishes and sore knees and the smell of urine on the bathroom floor, I have to bring myself to a full internal mental stop before I can change gears and find meaning in metaphorical and anthropomorphic language about God. God does not look like George Burns. I get that. “The imagery which here must lend support remains wrapped in mystical dimness,” Kuyper wrote. “A visible face exhibits what is corporeal, and God is spirit.” We are merely using the image of a face.

Kuyper urges us to employ this image to put ourselves in the way of being close to God, close enough to see His “face”—so that “he looks at us and we at him”:

“The main thing is that we no longer satisfy ourselves with a conception of God, a scientific knowledge of God, or a speaking about God, but that we have come in touch with God himself; that we have met Him, that in and by our way through life He has discovered us to ourselves, and that a personal relation has sprung up between the Living God and our soul.”

In my reading and in my prayer, in my spiritual life, in every aspect of my life at this point, I am all-consumed with grief. I mostly cannot care deeply about anything else but about how much I miss Aidan. I find moments of delight with M. Peevie and Mr. Peevie, and rarer ones with C. Peevie because he’s not at home and often out of touch. But those moments are fleeting, and the minutes and hours in between are filled with either longing for Aidan and missing him, or intentionally trying to push that ache to the background so I can concentrate on something else. Trying to push the grief away is like trying not to notice that Benedict Cumberbatch just walked into the room. It's just not going to happen.

So when I read Kuyper, and remember that God is here, God is All, God is personal, and God offers me a relationship with Himself—I think to myself, I should try to act like I believe this, instead of behaving like a practical atheist. If I take this heavy burden to God in prayer, if I seek God’s face, maybe I will find some comfort there.

My prayers are so selfish and self-centered. Really, pretty much 98 percent of my thoughts, actions and words are selfish and self-centered. I’m just trying to get through the day without breaking up into a million Aidan-missing pieces.

Kuyper concludes this meditation with these words: 

“There is a moment in the life of the child of God when he feels the stress of the inability to rest, until he finds God; until after he has found Him, he has placed himself before Him, and standing before Him, seeks His face; and he cannot cease that search until he has met God’s eye, and in that meeting has obtained the touching realization that God has looked into his soul and he has looked God in the eye of Grace. And only when it has come to this the mystery of grace discloses itself.”

This makes me wonder, and hope, that perhaps if there is a God, He is somehow available to me, and that I might actually find comfort and relief by seeking His face. It does not make sense to my troubled, messed-up mind, which only wants Aidan and misses him and cannot fathom the egregious wrong of his sudden, traumatic, and premature death. It does not make sense that anything but Aidan can salve this wound—but I do believe, or at least I want to believe, that this is what God wants to do for me, and can do for me.

Maybe these words can be my prayer, because I have no other.

God Is Good...Right?

A friend took a trip overseas, and was surprised and pleased to see that her bags had not gotten caught up in customs, but had arrived with her. She posted her happiness on Facebook, and noted, "God is good."

Another friend asked for prayer for her sick relative. When he recovered, she posted, "God is good. My dad is well. Prayer really does work!!!"

It's good to be grateful, and to thank God for the things in our lives that go right. But it bothers me when people of faith connect God's goodness to things going right. God is still good even if our luggage gets lost or dad is still sick. God is still good, even when the worst possible thing happens. 

Right? I believe this. I want to believe it. But in the middle of loss, grief, and sorrow, sometimes I struggle to believe it. "Lord, I believe; help Thou my unbelief."

If we only declare the goodness of God when things go our way, what are we saying about God? And about ourselves, and our faith? We seem to be saying that God's goodness is somehow connected to good outcomes. Of course this isn't what we believe--or at least, it's not what we say we believe, nor what the Bible says about the character of God. "Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever" (Psalm 136:1). 

We believe that God is good all the time, that it is one of His immutable characteristics, like holiness, justice and omniscience. But we tend to only declare it when we feel it--and this tendency has two negative effects: number one, we are testifying to other believers that this is the primary way we know that God is good--by the good things that happen to us. And number two, the watching world might interpret our belief to be tied to or dependent upon positive outcomes.

I am a believer who struggles daily with outcomes that are disappointing, unsatisfying, painful, and sometimes downright evil. If I thought that God's goodness was tied to good outcomes, I would cease to believe in God. In fact, I suppose I would discover that I wasn't really believing in God at all--but rather, a made-up, Pollyanna version of God that exists to make people feel good about themselves and the world. This is not God at all--or at least not the God that reveals Himself in the Bible.

If I only see God's goodness in good outcomes on this earth, then when horrible things happen, I start to think that God has failed me or forgotten me, or that God has not kept his promises to me. But God does not promise us health, or happiness, or good-looking children, or financial security, or freedom from persecution. 

In fact, the Bible indicates that believers can be guaranteed that they will have trouble, hardship, sorrow, and persecution in this life. Jesus plainly said this: "In this world you will have trouble" (John 16:33)--but the rest of that verse gives us the promise: "I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

I propose that we stop saying "God is good" when we feel grateful for a positive outcome, because it sends the wrong message and minimizes the actual goodness of God, which is the apogee of goodness, far grander and more awesome than on-time luggage or physical healing or any other positive outcome we encounter. 

Instead, when we experience the joy of a good outcome, we could say "I'm grateful for this good thing that God allowed," or just "Thanks be to God." And that might give us the freedom and strength when we face ineluctable suffering to continue to know and trust in God's unchanging goodness. 

In the wake of losing Aidan, I am re-learning how to be grateful. It is a painfully slow process, but in this moment, in the middle of relentless grief, I choose to believe that God is good. "Help Thou my unbelief."

Letter of Reference

When I started back to work full-time in September 2010, the most difficult adjustment involved the early evening hours. The kids would go home with friends or stay in after-care at school. I would pick them up after work, drive them home, and start dinner while they worked on homework. 

At least, that was the plan. What really happened was that our drive home during the worst of rush hour was filled with hunger-and-fatigue-fueled crabbiness: crying, snarking, crabbing, complaining. The kids would be starving (in the first-world sense of the word); they'd be like hyenas finding an antelope carcass in the Serengeti, growling and snapping until they tore off a chunk, dragged it away from the pack, and filled their bellies.

At the same time, we'd be trying to deal with homework, permission slips, and conversations about bullies, hurt feelings, playground shenanigans, and the general unfairness of life. Snack time morphed into dinner time, because it didn't make sense to make a satisfying snack at four and then have dinner at six; and a small snack was never enough.

There was more of the same chaos after dinner, because homework was still hanging over us. And every damn day somebody forgot at least one book or one assignment, which they'd remember at 9 o'clock at night. Then there would be tears and tantrums and self-recriminations until the affected party finally fell asleep.

It was stressful and inefficient. All I wanted to do at night was drink wine and watch TV; and often I fell into bed exhausted, with no energy to even watch one rerun of Law & Order: Criminal Intent.

My pretend boyfriends were starting to miss me.

My friend Director J said, "You need someone to pick up the kids, feed them a snack, and get them going on their homework so you don't have to start dealing with that at 5:30." These words were a gift from God. We promptly hired our manny, Manuel, who has also been a gift from God.

When Manuel brings the kids home from school, they get started on homework while he makes them a delicious and nutritious snack, such as chateaubriand under glass or spaghettios.

They're happy and able to concentrate. Manuel gently urges them to stay focused on homework, and helps them figure it out. He patiently walks A. Peevie through challenging math problems. When they need a break from concentrating on boring homework, he takes them to the park for slacklining (their latest fun activity), tosses a football, watches You-Tube videos, or plays ping-pong. Then they get back to homework.

On afternoons when they don't have as much homework, Manuel will take them to Lisa's for frozen yogurt or to Natalie's for a hot dog. If A. Peevie has a therapy or clinic appointment after school, Manuel takes him, and I don't have to take time off work.

I walk through the door after work, and the house is generally peaceful*. One kid works on homework at the computer, the other at the kitchen table. The house smells like waffles or grilled cheese sandwiches. Sometimes Sufjan Stevens is playing on the I-Pod dock in the kitchen. He (Manuel, not Sufjan) reminds the kids to empty the dishwasher and take out the trash.

[*Unless C. Peevie is home, in which case forgetaboutit. It's loud. There is all sorts of music being played: piano, guitar, trumpet; the I-Pod is loud; there are sibling battles raging. I should change his blog name to Captain Noise.]

When Manuel is not in the house, his name is often being evoked. The other night, the whole time I was making waffles for dinner, A. Peevie was "helping" me with "encouraging" suggestions that all began with "When Manuel makes waffles, he..."Apparently, I should have listened, because my first batch of waffle batter went horribly wrong. It looked like a bowl of beige-colored hurl. Where did all those lumps come from? I threw it out and started over. I'll bet Manuel never had to throw out a batch of waffle batter.

Mr. Peevie and I are also grateful for the spiritual influence Manuel has had on our household. When C. Peevie, A. Peevie and I were shopping at the mall for non-existent pants to fit teenage boys with 24-inch waists and 32-inch inseams, we stopped for a nosh. We sat down at a table, and A. Peevie asked me, "Do you mind if I say grace?" In the middle of the crowded food court, we bowed our heads, and he prayed a gentle, thankful prayer over our Sbarro calzones.



And now Manuel is leaving us. He is pursuing his own dreams--which, whatever. I know that's  what young men do. But still. This is horribly inconvenient for me, and tragic for my family.

I wonder if he could commute from North Dakota; and I wonder if that would be asking too much.

Praying Over Sewers, Liquor Licenses and Variances

The Freedom From Religion Foundation recently targeted Wheaton, Illinois, urging officials to discontinue their practice of offering a prayer at the beginning of city council meetings.

My first thought on this is, Why does a national group with its headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin, need to insert itself into the affairs of a small Illinois town? Shouldn't they trust the citizens of Wheaton to make decisions for themselves?

So I looked into the archives of the FFRF, and discovered that the complaint actually originated with a Wheaton resident, who wrote a letter asking that the invocations be discontinued. So that's a different story, right? He has a right to complain, because it's his city also. He didn't get satisfaction: the Mayor said, "No one has ever complained before!"--which is not an answer. When the complaint comes from one of your tax-paying residents, you have to deal with it.

In response to the FFRE complaint, the city has tweaked its policy about prayers during council meetings. The invocation will be given before the mayor officially bangs the gavel to start the meeting. This is not good enough for the FFRF, whose spokesperson Annie Laurie Gaylor said, "Why do they need to pray over sewers, liquor licenses, and variances?"

Tomes have been written about prayer by ancient church fathers, Reformation-era leaders, and contemporary teachers and theologians, and I won't attempt to give a thorough treatment here. But the short answer is: Prayer is conversation with God, and we pray because we believe God hears our prayers.

The God of the universe hears and answers our prayers! And not just our prayers about so-called spiritual matters, because this dichotomy between sacred and secular is false. Jesus, we believe, is Lord of all things, not just Lord of churchy things. And that's why we pray over sewers, liquor licenses and variances.

But even though the question about praying over variances has theoretical appeal and practical value, it is irrelevant in these circumstances. The issue for Jesus-followers in this situation is not whether it is legitimate to pray about city business, but whether it is a matter of Christian principle to insist upon doing so. The guiding principle, I believe, comes from Romans 12:18: "If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone."

There is no need for the believers on the city council of Wheaton to insist on their legal right to pray at the meeting, whether before or after the gavel. It's not connected to any Biblical mandate, and it doesn't accomplish anything that prayer at a separate time and place wouldn't accomplish. Insisting on praying at the meeting appears to be more of a flexing of political muscle than a demonstration of Christlike humility and a desire live at peace with everyone.

We'll give Dietrich Bonhoeffer the last word:

The followers of Christ have been called to peace. . . . And they must not only have peace but also make it. And to that end they renounce all violence and tumult. In the cause of Christ nothing is to be gained by such methods. . . . His disciples keep the peace by choosing to endure suffering themselves rather than inflict it on others. They maintain fellowship where others would break it off. They renounce hatred and wrong. In so doing they over-come evil with good, and establish the peace of God in the midst of a world of war and hate. (The Cost of Discipleship)

What do you think?

I am Jonah

I am Jonah.

My pastors have been preaching on Jonah, and every single week I leave church thinking, "I am Jonah. I am just like him."

Jonah gets a bad rap because, well, he's an idiot. Just like me.

First, he runs away from God. Dumbass. You can't run away from God, Jonah. You can act like God can't see you, can't hear you, can't find you--but duh! Of course he can. He can find you on the ship to Tarshish when you're supposed to be traveling to Nineveh. He can also find you when you're holed up in your bedroom with an open bottle of wine and a high-def TV. And he can find you when you're just minding your own business, trying to be a good person, but deep down beginning to realize that that's not good enough. (Hello, Roseanne?)

Of course God can find you--and the truly amazing thing is, he's actually coming after you. He'll stir up the sea until your shipmates threaten to throw you overboard. Or he'll allow a different kind of storm in your life--maybe cancer, maybe a sick child, maybe unemployment or a really horrible boss, depression, or a million other storms that, if you're smart, will make you remember that God wants you, or wants you back.

He's waiting for you to look up and say, Um, God? Can I get a hand, here?

He's also waiting for you to remember who and what you are. You are Jonah, the guy God called to do a really important job, like preach to the Ninevites, or raise a child, or be an honest cop, a loving spouse, a generous friend, a talented musician, or a million other callings that, if you're smart, will make you remember that God is the one who gave you that calling and is going to help you follow it.

He's waiting for you to look up and say, God? Thanks. And help, please.

God is also waiting for you to remember that you are not God. You do not get to decide what justice looks like. You do not get to point to other people and say, Smite them, God! They are bad, bad people because they worship idols, or take drugs, or fail to live up to your own exceptionally high standards of housekeeping.

But that's what Jonah did, Reverend Moses Butcher told us today at church. He became annoyed at God because he wanted to see justice done to those sinners of Nineveh--just like I become annoyed at the sinners around me, who don't parent like I think they should, or don't obey me as promptly as I want them to, or have the right opinion about social justice issues.

I am such a Jonah.

Jonah was miserable. "It displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry...Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live" (Jonah 4:1, 3). Why was he miserable? Because he was waiting for the fireworks of God's destruction of Nineveh. He wanted Nineveh to pay for their sins; he wanted justice.

But, Reverend Butcher pointed out, Jonah's notion of justice does not look anything like God's justice. God is (thank God!) "a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster" (Jonah 4:2). Jonah wants people to pay for their sin; God wants people to repent, and be brought back into relationship with Him.

Like Jonah, I often want people to pay. I want to hear them say, "I was wrong, I am a worm." I want them to pay if they've wronged me, or someone I love. This is how I often deal with Mr. Peevie, with my kids, with my co-workers--not to mention the stranger who has just cut me off in the street.

But wouldn't it be better if Jonah and I, and all of us, were more like God, slow to anger, and willing to wait and work for reconciliation and redemption? God said to Jonah, "Should I not pity Nineveh?"

I am always telling my kids that retaliation is never the answer. But, boy it sure is an instinctive reaction. On Saturday, a bigger boy was sitting on his bike near M. Peevie, who was minding her own business playing with a skip-ball (one of those ankle-jump-rope things), and as he moved his bike to get past her, he said in a tough-guy voice, "If that thing hits my bike, you're gonna pay."

After a decade of telling my kids, "Retaliation is never the answer," I wanted to get up and knock that little boy right off his bike. This is my instinct--not to gently help him understand that bullying and threatening a smaller person is wrong, but to hurt him for trying to intimidate my baby girl.

I am Jonah. But I want instead to be like Jesus, the literal epitome of God's mercy. That's my prayer.

I picked up the images from Biblical Art on the WWW.

Distance to Empty

I told you about the Big Game, but I didn't tell you the story about the trip back to South Haven after the big game. It will either make you think to yourself, "Oh, that sounds like something I'd do" or--and this is statistically more probable--it will make you think, "Geez, I'm glad I'm not married to that idiot."

C. Peevie and I hung out at the post-championship pizza party for about half an hour before we headed back out of town for the last day of vacation. It was about nine p.m. Chicago time when we hit the road. The low-gas indicator lit up on the dashboard as I pulled out, but I recklessly thought to myself, "There's no way I'm going to pay Cook County prices for gas when I'll be in Indiana in half an hour."

You know where this is headed, don't you? Uh huh.

I switched the navigator buttons over to the DTE setting. That's "distance to empty," which estimates the number of miles you can drive before you stupidly stall out and curse your stupidity on the side of the stupid highway because you've stupidly run out of stupid gas. I figured I had a handle on it; I was watching the DTE digits carefully. If I get too close to zero, I thought, I'll just pull over and get some expensive gas.

So as I was driving along, the DTE numbers were going down, exactly as logic would predict; but I was getting close to the Skyway, and from there it's only a few miles to the Indiana border. Gary was within smelling distance at this point, so I was confident that I'd find a gas station well before we hit zero.

[Confidence does not bear any kind of relationship to common sense or intelligence, or even to reality, it seems. Confidence is not a reliable predictor of success. Confidence is like frosting: it makes the cake look good--but if the cake is no good, people won't eat it.

OK, I don't know if that made any sense at all, but I googled "confidence + anecdotes" and all I got was about a billion links to anecdotes about how having confidence leads to success, so I had to make up my own damn analogy.]

Meanwhile, back to my story. Where was I? Oh yeah, I was approaching Gary on the Indiana Tollroad, and the DTE meter had dropped to about seven. No sweat, right? The first Gary exit was closed, so we kept going to the second. C. Peevie was beginning to get anxious as DTE had now hit four.

As we exited into beautiful downtown Gary, it was about 9:45 pm-ish. There was no gas station in sight. There was nothing but darkened warehouses in sight, as a matter of fact. "Is this Gary?" C. Peevie asked.

"Yup," I said, continuing down the deserted street, hopeful in spite of the absence of any signs of a gas station.

"It reminds me of Gotham City," C. Peevie said.

"You mean because it's dark and bleak and deserted?" I asked.

"Exactly," C. P. said, trepidation creeping into his voice.

Eventually, I turned the gas-sucking mini-van around, cursing my stupidity for having such a fuel-inefficient vehicle--but not yet cursing myself for not getting gas in Chicago; and at the same time suggesting to C. Peevie that he start to pray.

We headed back onto the highway, and almost immediately saw a sign for gas in two miles. Again, with more confidence than Danny Ocean, I figured, no sweat, we've still got three miles on the DTE gauge.

Two miles later, we reach the turn-off for 94, and I take the exit to head toward South Haven. "Um, Mom?" C. Peevie asks. "Isn't that the gas station down there? Why are we driving away from it?"

"Uh oh," I said. "I guess the sign for two miles to gas was for people staying on the tollroad."

DTE: 2 miles.

"Mom, what happens if we run out of gas?" said C. Peevie nervously.

"Well, honey, we'll just make a phone call and wait, or we'll walk to a gas station," I said, still optimistic. "But don't worry about that yet. We're still golden. But you might want to say another little prayer."

DTE: 1 mile.

"Mom, we're down to one mile left," C. Peevie said.

"I know, honey, but look--there's a sign for gas coming up!" I told him. The sign said that Portage was a mere four miles away, and--again with the confidence--I knew that the DTE gauge typically registered a conservative estimate of the number of miles, and gave no credit for fumes.

DTE: Zero.

"Mom," C. P. said, making it two syllables. "Zero, Mom."

"We're still moving, C. Peevie," I reassured him. "As long as we're still moving, there's a chance we might make it." My confident tone belied the pounding of my heart and the knot in my gut. Hey--it felt just like being at a breath-takingly close championship little league game!


Do cars use less gas at slower rates of speed? I wondered. I thought I remembered hearing during the "55 Saves Lives" campaign back in the Dark Ages that better gas mileage was a fringe benefit of slower speed limits, so I started conserving gas by slowing down.

"We're slowing down," C. Peevie observed. "I think we're out of gas."

But we kept going, and finally, three miles later, we coasted into the Marathon station in Portage. Gas was a scant $3.89 per gallon--fully 45 cents less than we would have paid in Chicago. I showed those Cook County politicians who were always raising my taxes.

And all it cost me was about four years of my life, foreshortened by anxiety-induced tachycardia.

"Well, C., that was an adventure, wasn't it?" I said happily.

"No, it was not," C. Peevie said, all grumpy-like. "I was scared to death."

Some people have no sense of adventure.

The Heart (and Spelling) of a Child

Dear God.

thank you for this wunderful day.

plese help evarybody to hav a grat morning.

plese help all the peple in China to be safe whar the erthcwak was.

in Jesus name we pray

Amen.

(M. Peevie's prayer at chapel this week.)

Letters: On Being Jesus

Dear M.,

I am always willing to talk to C. about spiritual things, but I will not force that conversation on her or on anyone else. I used to do that to people, and I regret doing so. I think it's generally counter-productive, serving only to damage the relationship rather than to bring someone closer to God.

I feel like my job with C. is just to love her exactly the way she is -- which at the moment means not going to church, not willing to talk about spiritual things. God is responsible for changing her heart and her mind, not me. I believe that God is more likely to use me in her life if I do everything I can to have a good, open relationship with her.

Also, I think the focus on external things and on "Christian" activities, like going to church and talking about God, is misplaced. I don't want this to sound harsh, and I'm afraid it does--but I do want to be honest with you, M. C. does not need us to talk about Jesus to her--C. needs us to be Jesus to her.

What does that mean, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked. Here's my take on it: Being Jesus to C. means

--don't try to change her. Love her and accept her exactly the way she is right now. Before you say anything to C., ask yourself, "Am I saying this because I want her to change?" If so, don't say it.

Trying to change another person is not only feckless, but it can also be destructive to the other person and to the relationship. I know from experience--it puts the person on the defensive. The only way to change another person is to pray for them--but sometimes prayer "backfires", and the one who prays is the one who changes. God is sneaky that way.

--serve her. Serve her in big things and little things. Helping her set up her craft room is a great example of serving her. You knew what was important to her, and you put your time and energy into making it happen. Good job with that! Serving her with little things sometimes means talking less and listening more, or picking up a crafting magazine on the way home from work, or putting gas in her car before she even asks.

Mr. Peevie is truly wonderful at these kinds of humble, daily acts of service. It makes me fall in love with him all over again. Every morning he re-sets the alarm clock to wake me up at the right time. When I cook for him, he's grateful and appreciative. If I need something ironed, he'll iron it for me. He buys me small gifts because he knows how much I love presents. (That's my love language--gifts.)

(What's C.'s love language? http://www.fivelovelanguages.com/30sec.html)

You know what--it's almost midnight, and I'm tired and losing focus. More on this later.

Fondly,

E. Peevie

God at the Dance Recital

The Princess of Everything (AKA M. Peevie) danced her heart out tonight during her two-minute recital performance.

We were getting ready for the dress rehearsal (DH) yesterday, and the Princess resisted putting on her pink tights because they looked like they had been Swiss cheesed by a pit bull. We promised to buy her new tights today before the recital.

At the DH, they ran through every dance number. I noticed a grand total of three boys participating in the dances. One of them was a surly pre-schooler who hilariously stood in the middle of the stage with his arms folded while ten pink ballerinas twirled around him. He won that battle: the ten pink ballerinas plied without their young Baryshnikov during the actual recital.

Today I fixed M.P.'s hair in the ballet-approved fashion--bangs twisted back off the face and her long wavy layers bobby-pinned into a bun that immediately started plotting its escape. I carefully applied mascara, blush, and lip gloss to her already-perfect face.

I opened the package of new tights and discovered that they were footless. Oops.

All day the sky threatened rain, but the downpour only started moments before we headed for the car. We grabbed jackets and umbrellas and made a dash for it. We didn't find out until we were headed into the school that in the hubbub, M.P. had put down her dance bag with her ballet shoes and left it behind.

We noticed that M.P. had somehow gotten her new footless tights grubby in the half hour since she put them on. Mr. Peevie bent down to try to clean her off, and somehow the two of them klonked their heads so hard that they both had enormous hematomas sprouting from their foreheads. "Any harder and I'd be unconscious," Mr. Peevie said.

The ballet princess wailed and sobbed, and her tears made rivers of mascara run down through perfectly blushed cheeks. I spit-cleaned her up as best I could, and we headed to the check-in point. That's when we realized we didn't have the ballet shoes. Back to the car we headed, with M.P. praying, "Please, Jesus, let my shoes be in the car, let my shoes be in the car."

They weren't. "Jesus didn't answer that prayer," M.P. observed.

"Well, then, we need to keep praying that God will bring you a different pair of shoes," I told her. "And if He doesn't, then we'll make the best of it, and you'll dance barefoot."

So, she revised her prayer, and we told the program helper about our problem. Later, after the recital, M.P. told me that God had answered her prayer. Right before it was time for her performance they found another dancer with the right size shoes that M.P. could borrow.

God is in the little things.

Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage

Madeleine L'Engle has been one of my favorite authors since I read A Wrinkle in Time when I was about nine or ten. Two-Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage is poignant, moving, and profound. The memoir time-travels between past and present: she remembers the challenges of weaving two artistic careers into the fabric of family life--or maybe vice-versa; and she tenderly and painfully relates the last chapter of her marriage during her husband's illness. L'Engle's spiritual insights and reflections on love and life add value beyond the telling of the story of a remarkable marriage.

Here's a passage from the book that particularly spoke to me:

"Prayer. What about prayer? A friend wrote to me in genuine concern about Hugh, saying that she didn't understand much about intercessory prayer. I don't either. Perhaps the greatest saints do. Most of us don't, and that is all right. We don't have to understand to know that prayer is love, and love is never wasted.

Ellis Peters, in A Morbid Taste for Bones, one of her delightful medieval whodunits, gives a beautiful description of what I believe to be intercessory prayer: 'He prayed as he breathed, forming no words and making no specific requests, only holding in his heart, like broken birds in cupped hands, all those people who were in stress or grief.'

And George MacDonald asks, ' And why should the good of anyone depend on the prayer of another? I can only reply, Why should my love be powerless to help another?'

I do not believe that our love is powerless, though I am less and less specific in my prayers, simply holding out to God those for whom I am praying.

...What happens to all those prayers when not only are they not 'answered' but things get far worse than anyone ever anticipated? What about prayer?

We do not know. We will not know in this life. Some prayers are magnificently answered. More than once this has been the case in my own life, glorious miracles of prayer.

But this summer the answers have all been negative. The doctors say, 'Everything has gone wrong.' One thing after another.

What about prayer?

Surely the prayers have sustained me, are sustaining me. Perhaps there will be unexpected answers to these prayers, answers I may not even be aware of for years. But they are not wasted. They are not lost. I do not know where they have gone, but I believe that God holds them, hand outstretched to receive them like precious pearls."