bumper to bumper

I feel quite undone today.
Full up with the goodness of my Papa God. My heart aches at His sweetness and His nearness.
I want to cry almost every minute I think about it.

And yet...
I stutter here a bit. Not knowing what exactly to write. I go back to the first sentences and breathe in the goodness that I know is there and try to dwell there a little bit longer.
Just a little longer please. His answer to me is always yes. I can dwell as long as I want.

What does goodness look like? It comes in so many forms. I struggle with it all the time.
I have been taught to be thankful. I have been taught so thoroughly that I can say "thank you" and "this really sucks" in the same breath.
And mean them both completely.

He is good. And ever present. Attending to my sorrow tho there are times where I feel that His attentions could be better spent elsewhere thankyouverymuch.
He doesn't play the part of "magical fixer" very well. I wish He did.

I do still believe in miracles. Tho not in the charismatic all caps way that I had embraced for a time.
GOD WILL RESCUE YOU! HAVE FAITH SISTER! BELIEVE AND RECEIVE YOUR REWARD!

No. Not that way.
But also not in a completely complacent tidal pool way either. I do not sit in the tepid water and wait for the next wave to wash me back home. (although there are times lately that I swear some kid with a sharp stick is poking me and shouting "WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING?!")

No. Not in that way either.

I believe in miracles in a beautiful lyrical way that sings as it weaves my heart longings into a tear filled Hallmark Holiday special. I believe in the majestic wonder of things too big to understand and too sweet to really embrace. I believe in everything working out perfectly.
I need to believe in that way. Cuz reality bites right now. And even there I am oddly happy that it isn't biting as bad as it could and Please Jesus don't test me on that.

When life is perfect I have no need to pray. Did you know that?
And when life is not so perfect?
Well, here I struggle a little.
Because I still have no need to pray. And that feels bad.
It feels very wrong. Pagan. Anti.....everything.

You can go back to other pages in this book and find that this is not new thinking on my part. Prayer was one of the first casualties in my battle with everything I had been raised to believe.

Let me break it down for you...
I no longer believe that you have to beg God for anything. You can if you want to. But you don't need to.
This belief came to me for the first time in the shower.
I was begging God to keep my family safe on our upcoming road trip. I was asking Him to go with us. To guide, guard, and protect us. To send His mighty angels ahead of us to create a hedge of protection along our roadway. I asked for good weather and non-sleepy eye lids. I enlisted a spiritual bumper-to-bumper full coverage policy on our van. I asked for clean restrooms and no vomiting.
I covered every area I could think of. And I still felt scared.
Then He spoke to me.
I heard no audible voice in the shower spray. What I heard was a picture. A video in my worried mind. A remembrance of all the trips I had taken as a child. I watched myself climb up into our car and drive off down the road with my daddy at the wheel and not one care in my heart. We ate meals when we were hungry. We slept when we were sleepy. Sometimes our car broke down...and we got it fixed. It was an adventure every time. Even the harder times.
But I did not ever...not one single time...beg my daddy to keep us safe. (I did tell him to wake up now and then...he is a champion nap driver)
Daddy knew, without even thinking about it too hard, that it was his job to get us to our destination.
And we never had to beg him to do it.

That thought has rocked my world. I can trust my Papa God to get me where I need to go.
He doesn't need my prayers to set everything up for Him...for us.
He just knows what to do and He does it.
Amazing.
I can still ask Him and even beg Him if I want to. I still do sometimes. And He rushes in and quiets me or lets me wail...sometimes both at the same time.
He does miracles for me. Although I have found that more often than not, I do not recognize the miracle until after the fact. I wish He marked them better.
I have to laugh when I think that sometimes those miracles feel like a kid with a sharp pokey stick shouting,
"WHY ARE YOU SLEEPING?!"

Other times, miracles come in the form of the daily sustaining ritual of eating and sleeping and being. The daily grind. A miracle.
I feel that I want to share my miracle with you. Just so you know.
My husband lost his job in November. It is now July. I have money in the bank and no debt except a reasonable house payment. This should not be possible. It would not be possible had he not lost his job.  I am not that smart in the money management department. It is just a miracle.


And in the midst of my miracle I daily struggle with the feeling that I somehow need to beg God for His care or prayerfully lay out the to-do list so that He can be better organized. Time...we need to get on this Big Guy. Don't you think we need to take care of....

I am sure this hurts my heart way more than it bugs Him. He can take my angst. He has proven that time and time again.


So what do I do? I pray.
Ha! Didn't expect that did you.
I pray...but only in a conversational way like I face book or pick up the phone.
I talk to Him about all this. My Papa God and I talk all the time. He almost never gives me the answers in a way that I can pin down to logic but He does answer.
Sometimes I say "this sucks."  Sometimes I say "thank you."

Mostly I feel His goodness and it makes me come undone. I can't explain it. It just does.