March 14: Pamela Sutton, "Afraid to Pray," Prayer Life

Afraid to Pray

by:  Pamela Sutton

Dear God I'm afraid if I pray for my daughter's safety you'll blithely
allow her to get raped or abducted or crash on a highway
on a perfect summer day.  Forget I mentioned my daughter.  What daughter?

I remember how Anne Frank believed in the goodness of mankind.
I wonder how she felt the moment her diary was knocked from her hands
because that's how I'm feeling these days:  like Job with post-traumatic

stress disorder.  Don't worry, God.  I know you exist; but I'm having some
serious trust issues.  Maybe it began with that nightmare about my
mother shoving my grandmother into a swift-running river.

I jumped in to save her, and I saved her all right, but O the branches
and Kentucky mud stuck in our hair and mouths--the disbelief
in her eyes--and me having to tell her the truth.

Dear God if you made us in your likeness because you were
lonely then uh-oh.  I'm so tired of Nazis marching to the rhythms of my
     prayers.
I prayed that the love of my life would survive his cancer then he died on my
     birthday.

And for thirty years I prayed my ex-husband would survive his insanity, but
     he
finally blew his brains out.  I know there's a heaven because
I walked along a tightrope of Atlantic foam after Joel died and

a rainbow lassoed the sun.  The sky was timorous and thin
as an eardrum and I knew if I pushed with all of my rage
that the sky would burst and we would touch hands one last time.

I's so tired of praying and getting punched in the gut.  I prayed that
my parents would not sell my sister's black Morgan horse with the star
on it's forehead, but they sold it all right and now she's afraid to love her own
     children.

I prayed that my parents would not sell the hand-built cabin on the
Indian reservation, but when they knew they could die without selling it,
     they sold
it all right and the new owners bulldozed it down along with everything in it

including a Bible my mother had placed just so.  And they chopped down the
     forest
and threw my canoe in dumpster.  Now all I do is scour real estate ads for
     log cabins
on the Indian reservation.  I've found a few places but they're just not the
     same.  Still,

I'd like to move back to the northwoods and live in a cabin and pray to the
     lake
and the woods and the wolves.  Like God the wolves would not answer my
     prayers,
but unlike God, by God they would listen for once and look me straight in
     the eye.

___________

I absolutely love this poem, because it is so true to my own prayer life experiences recently.  This past week, I've been praying for someone who is really hurting.  Today, my prayer was answered, but not in the way that I wanted or intended.

That's the problem with God.  He doesn't do exactly what you want Him to do.  He doesn't follow directions well.  He's like my nine-year-old son when I tell him to take a bath.  My son just sits there, playing on his computer, running his online world, ignoring me as I get more and more angry and frustrated.

That's the way things work.  I know this.  God doesn't always answer prayers the way I want.  God knows what's best, even if what is best absolutely sucks.

Saint Marty has always struggled with answered prayers.