Unanswered Prayer

This morning when I woke up and looked out the window, it was another glorious spring day—in February! Crocuses bloomed in my flower bed and it promised to be a great day for a walk. And that made me think about how often we pray for weather (let it be cold, let it be warm, let it rain, let it not rain). Personally, I like the warm winter we’ve been having, but there is a down side to it. Some plants need a certain number of cold days to bloom properly in the spring. If we don’t get enough cold days, we’ll have more bugs of the annoying kind. We could take it further to the economic impact of those who depend on selling items needed in cold weather. There’s also the problem that the warmth fools plants, animals and insects into believing it really is spring and then—whammo. Kansas weather changes hit, and it’s below freezing for a solid week, killing the tender buds and baby animals.

We plead for outcomes all the time, even for sporting events. I can imagine God saying, “Really, you want that team to win?” Yet, how many times has God provided not what we want, but what we NEED. For instance, seventeen years ago, I prayed that God would hold my marriage together, despite our problems. Yet God provided what my husband and I needed, not what we wanted. Neither of us would have grown as persons had we stayed together. We had become like an ill-fitting shoe and a sore foot. It was time to change.

Twelve years later, when my new-found love Charles was facing leukemia, I prayed he would be healed, that we could share our lives for many years. God healed him—by taking him home, and we had only five months. Yet both of us learned profound truths in those five months, and we lived our many years together in that short few weeks.

A few years ago, a spring blizzard we didn’t believe would materialize dumped 28 inches of snow on our town, and led to our mad rush stopping for three days, as, trapped in our homes, we marveled at this reminder of Who is really in charge.

Sometimes I have prayed to be spared certain experiences, and yet, those have often been the very experiences I now cherish. As Garth Brooks sings, “Sometimes I thank God, for unanswered prayer … Some of God’s greatest gifts are unanswered prayers.” When has God not answered your prayers the way you wanted, and you later gave thanks for that?

Spring

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Today the window I looked through was anticipation of spring. Walking on break, I heard the unmistakable trill of sandhill cranes flying north. My heart leaped; sandhills going north is a sure indicator of spring. Going south in the fall, they signal winter. I caught sight of the flock for just an instant before they were lost against the blinding bright sky.

Bart took me for a nice walk after work this balmy evening. People and dogs were everywhere, eager to release a winter’s pent up activity on this, the first truly spring-like day. The twenty inches of snow released green as it retreated. My garden sprouts with hyacinths, tulips, daffodils and paper-whites. Soon, riotous blooms will show in wild extravagance.

Later, we took our before-bed short walk in the open field across from my house. The air as we went down the steps smelled of rain—somewhere. As I stood at the end of the leash while Bart “read” the notes left on a bush by other animals, I looked up at the night sky. It was so clear and bright that I could almost feel the earth rotating beneath my feet and see the stars spinning above me.

Then I caught the honk of geese. Our local resident, over-wintering geese do not fly at night. They go out to forage after daybreak and come home to roost before dusk. These geese flew with a purpose, day and night, focused on reaching the summer nesting grounds. I saw the ghostly gray vee above me against the navy blue sky.

I felt connected to the history that has gone before me as well as the history that will go on beyond me, the consistent circle of season following season. This was proof that God is in His heaven, that hope springs fresh, dawn after darkness.

One of my favorite poems by Carl Sandburg says:
I want to do the right thing, but often I don’t know just what the right thing is. Every day I know I have come short of what I would like to have done. Yet as the years pass and I see the very world itself, with its oceans and mountains and plains, as something unfinished, a peculiar little satisfaction hunts out the corners of my heart. Sunsets and evening shadows find me regretful at tasks undone, but sleep and the dawn and the air of the morning touch me with freshening hopes. Strange things blow in through my window on the wings of the night wind and I don’t worry about my destiny.