For Wilshire Baptist Church
Sunday night we sat in the closet under our stairs waiting for whatever might happen. We’d been following the weather reports on TV, and when the radar maps showed the tornado moving eastward across North Dallas toward our Garland neighborhood, we went into the closet and listened to the reports with the door open. When the power went out and the TV went silent, we closed the door and watched the reports on our iPhones.
When the radar showed the storm had passed, we came out of the closet and were relieved to see that nothing had happened. We stepped outside and were surprised to find no wind damage; despite the raucous thunder and lightning, it hadn’t even rained. There were flecks of debris in the yard that we picked up the next morning in the bright sunlight. It was bits of insulation and drywall that had blown in from two streets over or maybe from miles away.
After the storm, lots of people on the TV news, Facebook and Twitter voiced gratitude and relief—thanking God even—for preservation of life and property. But while so many of us were spared, many others were not. Nobody was seriously hurt, but homes, businesses and schools were destroyed. It will be months, perhaps years, before some of the victims’ lives are restored and they feel normal again. Some of them may be wondering where God was when the storms came.
Fellow Wilshire blogger Kristi Walters wrote in this space last week about her struggle with prayer and God’s promises in the wake of the sudden loss of her husband. I’ve had that struggle too. It started in 1971 when my sister died after a car wreck. I sat in a chair in the hospital lobby and prayed fervently that she would be OK, and then I was led upstairs and told she was gone. I don’t recall any great awakening at that moment, but I believe the shock of that event planted in my 12-year-old head the idea that this prayer business is not what I thought it was. Prayer is not like throwing coins in a fountain or wishing on a shooting star; God is not Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy.
Since then, I’ve mostly steered clear of outcome-based prayer. I’ve asked God for forgiveness but not much else. Certainly I’ve asked God’s mercy and healing for others in their times of need, but I’ve not been so expectant of the same for myself. I know I’ve backslid on that a few times. I prayed for actual miracles when Debra was being treated for cancer, but my prayers didn’t stop a disease that doctors and scientists working for decades haven’t been able to stop.
That doesn’t mean I’ve ever felt abandoned or distant from God; I’ve never once questioned God’s presence or God’s love and mercy. But instead of praying for specific things, my prayers have focused mostly on gratitude for good times and strength to get through hard times. When we were in the closet under the stairs, I didn’t pray that the storm would spare us. I just sat and waited for whatever might or might not happen. If we had stepped out of the closet to find our world destroyed, I would have prayed then. I would have prayed, “Lord, help us get through this; help us persevere.”
And that’s a prayer that has never failed. Looking back 48 years since that awful day in 1971, and almost a dozen years since the cancer wars – and through all the smaller bumps and bruises this life has given – I can say that I’ve gotten through it, I’ve persevered, and I haven’t been alone.