When you pray, who speaks more – you or God?
When I pray?
Me. Always me.
I ask God a question and try to wait for a response, but my brain goes on a journey anyway, meandering all over the place.
Eventually, I come back to my question (if I remember it), but by then… I wonder if God has tuned me out.
But somewhere deep inside, I believe God never stops listening and, even more, God gets those answers through to me no matter what.
So if you have trouble with quieting your brain in prayer (or just in general) this is for you!
GOD SO GETS ME
Late one night,
I decided to have
a nice little chat
with God.
So I walked outside,
breathed in
the cool night air
and took in
the great big sky.
I began with
a quite common
opener:
”Have you seen
the crescent moon tonight?
Oh my, how bright it shines!”
But before God could respond
I went on:
“You know,
it reminds me
of that yellow ball
that was once stuck
in the muddy yard
after that big,
and unexpected rain.
Do you remember that?”
But before God could answer
I went on:
“Oh that poor ball!
You know
it met the unfortunate fate
of a giant puppy’s
large and untrained bite
later that same day.”
Soon there was no stopping me:
“Oh my, did it flatten like
a big, vanilla pancake,
much like the
ones I made
for breakfast
just today.
And oh my, were they burnt
to a gnarly crisp!
At least
the first one was…
but they got better
and each boy got
his own tiny stack
in the end.
And oh my, did
that last pancake
sit for hours
on a pink circle plate
just lying on the table
forgotten by a
distracted boy.
The poor pancake,
half-eaten it was,
shaped much like
a crescent moon!”
But don’t worry,
I got back to the start
before God even
had to say a thing:
“By the way,
I forget
did you say you saw
the moon tonight?”
Oh my poor, sweet God
couldn’t get
a single word in
on that one dark,
cool night.
Truth be told,
more often than not
I’m the one
doing ALL the talking.
Yet still,
somewhere in all
the twists and turns
of my special,
special brain,
God still finds a way
to speak
love
directly to my
chatty,
chatty soul.
And I,
an imperfect human,
get to stand tall,
forever bathed
in the blessed moonlight.
©2022, Gretchen Crowder
