A Praying Life by Paul Miller

My home church, Annapolis EP, gave all the women at the Europe Women's Retreat the book A Praying Life. I've really appreciated it. I'm reading it at a time in my life that I want to understand prayer better. As I put away my journal for 2009, I read my last entry. It talks about things I've been praying for over the year and even years that were still seemingly unanswered. The beginning of the book talks about a "quiet cynicism or spiritual weariness that develops in us when heartfelt prayer goes unanswered." That's kinda where I was as I began this year.

Towards the end of February, after nearly six weeks in Europe, I headed back to the US (Paul was in Dar es Salaam visiting Meg). Wil and Amy along with Anna met me at the airport and we went out to dinner. As we waited for a table to become available, Amy suggested we play a new word game Wil had. He loves games so Anna and I thought nothing of it. Wil put letters out on the bench for us to spell as many words as we could. If we could use all the letters, that would be a winning score. So we were madly putting letters together when Anna suddenly yelled "pregnancy"!. One of those long time, heartfelt prayers had been answered. We all teared up and I just stood amazed at God's kindness. It was so great to write in my journal this wonderful answer to prayer. The baby is due in October. There are still others, waiting to be answered, and as I continue along reading A Praying Life, many quotes are helping me along.

I do long to see answers to my prayers. Of course, I long to see my answers, what I think would be best. These aren't selfish prayers, that aren't about me, but my children, my Mother, a dear friend...Miller says "Don't be embarrassed by how needy your heart is. The point of Christianity isn't to learn a lot of truths so you don't need God anymore." I know I need God. I know I need His answers to my prayers. But I still struggle with defeated weariness. "If Satan can't stop you from praying, then he will try to rob the fruit of praying by dulling your soul. Satan cannot create, but he can corrupt." And I do find my soul dulling as the months and years go by.

But as I continue reading this book I am reminded again that God isn't finished with any of our stories yet. In fact, "I am called to trust that God sees what I see. In fact, he sees beyond what I see. He sees the whole story and is completely trustworthy to be at work on a grand scale, in the minutia, and even in my own life." If God is sovereign, He controls the details, if God is loving He will shape those details for good, if God is wise He will do what I need not what I think I need, if God is patient then He will take the time needed to do all this. Put that all together and we have a "divine story". And in that is my hope, confident expectation as my Dad used to say.