The Answer to a Prayer

I started to say, the answer to a prayer I didn’t know I spoke.  But that’s not quite right: I did and I do know I spoke it – I spoke it aloud.  Aloud and alone in the sanctuary tonight, reading the litanies, beholding my Lord at the empty cross, weeping my prayers – I did speak it.

I asked God my purpose here.

I wept for love of them, of me.

I shared the secret lonely places of my heart with my God.

I asked God my purpose.

I beheld my mortality, inscribed in ashes on the back of each hand.

And when I came home, there it was: the answer to my prayer – a typical (if I might be so cheeky) indirect kind of God answer, but an answer nonetheless: the blinking light and beep . . . beep . . . beep of the telephone message variety.  Sigh.  I sit down, hit the button and listen.

Barbara wants to know if I can play bridge next Wednesday.

And Will shares a need and a good deed done, prompted, he says, by asking himself what Beth would say he should do in the situation.  And he thanked me for my influence in his life.

And my prayer was answered.

I’m still not sure what it means as an answer, but I do know this: God gave me a great big hug tonight – one I desperately needed – and I am grateful.  God whispered in Will’s ear and Will called and I am grateful.

Tired and grateful.

Rent and grateful.

Lonely and grateful.

Overwhelmed and grateful.

Sore to my soul and grateful.

Filled with far too many human-exploding Dresden-burning images . . . and grateful.

It’s the smile at the gut punch – the smile that is seeing something else even as the pain spreads.

And I am grateful.