I’m washing sheets today. Removing little stains from a cut finger or a smudge of makeup. I love crawling in bed and smelling clean sheets – just a touch of bleach, good old original scent Tide, and a soft vanilla-lavender finish from the dryer sheet. It’s the start of a good night’s sleep.
I scrub the bloodstain and wonder once more why the prayers are not answered. After 27 years you’d think I’d give up. Many days I do. “I’m just not going to pray for her anymore. What’s the use? This prayer is never going to be answered.”
I stick to my conviction for maybe a day and then I see her picture, or hear a song she loves, or one I call “her” song like “You Are My Shining Star” and the heart wrenches and I cry out to Him for help with it all. I’m a prisoner of hope. Just maybe…maybe this will be the year she surrenders. Maybe the bloodstains of sin long practiced will go away and she’ll be free.
Do you travel this road with me, dear friend? Your desperate hope for a restored marriage or a long-time debt wiped clean? I know you who have prodigals – that hollow look in your eye, that longing in your voice when you mention him. “I don’t know how to pray for this anymore,” you confess.
Eventually, knowing what to pray escapes us. It’s not like we can ask God to do something. What is there left for Him to do that wasn’t done on the cross? Have mercy? He’s full of mercy. It’s lavished on anyone brave enough to ask for it. Give more grace? What greater demonstration of grace than the bloodstained broken body of His Son?
I fill the laundry tub and leave the sheets to soak a while before I run the washer. “It’s not about her, is it, Lord? This long soak to remove the marks of life?”
The 27-year soak has changed me. The fear and anxiety of two decades ago are no longer strangling. I’ve learned I cannot control this – control her choices. Control anything. That was an illusion.
I think about how He’s carried me through. All the times He’s whispered, “I’m here. It’s okay. We made it through another day. Just keep loving. Don’t ever stop loving.”
One day I stood on the deck overlooking the lake. I’d just had a phone call and a report of another crisis. Once more the obsessive fear of her death choked so that I had trouble breathing. I remembered the verses that set me on this path, the mantle I picked up wholly believing it was laid on my shoulders by God.
James, winding up his practical book that starts with our common struggles and the call to rejoice, and ends up with these closing comments. He says this…
Sister, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns her back, let her know that she who turns a sinner from the error of her way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins (5:19,20).
That is how I read those verses. My job was to make sure she didn’t die. I accepted my assignment with passion and it became the reason I lived. After so many years, weary of the crushing weight of the task and my lack of peace, the futility of it all, I knew I couldn’t go on much longer. That day on the deck I thought I heard Him say,
“Will you just love her in the midst of this and not try to save her or change her or keep her from dying? You can’t do any of that because it’s my job. But you can love – grace is given for you to love her. Will you do that for me? Even if nothing ever changes?”
I was stunned by the request. Even if nothing ever changes? What an invitation! How could I possibly go on without the knowledge this would turn out well, that all my prayers would be answered?
The answer to that question, to how we follow Jesus in any given situation, is the same. We do it by faith. It’s all by faith – from beginning to end. And what is faith? It’s the moral conviction that God is good and He’s working all things to our good. To her good and my good and your good. Faith is adherence and trust and dependence on that good God’s intentions.
Five years have passed since that word came from God. Nothing much has changed – except me. I’ve learned to thank Him for the long soak, the holy cleanness of surrendering to what is and being at peace with it. And to wake up to the beauty that enfolds me daily…
The smell of coffee drifting down the hall announcing paradise
The incense of steaks on the grill or Bob’s aftershave
The gift of friends around a fire talking, laughing, singing.
I still pray for her, but only the scripture. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and his incomparably great power to us who believe.” Ephesians 1:17-19 NIV
That’s a good enough prayer, don’t you think?
Thank you for sharing…it is a lesson we all have to learn. I am also learning slowly.
The good part is that we ARE learning and growing. It makes everything that happens redemptive. Thanks for posting a comment.
I so empathize with you. I have prayed for a certain person for years and often give up hope. Then, out of the blue (just like God) I see a hopeful response. And then, returning to the dark cave, that person chooses to die inwardly, ever-so-slowly … chooses the black pit of a moldy cave to the crisp, healing ‘Son-shine’ of our Father in heaven. Your words motivate me to continue praying no matter what happens. It’s that Hope that keeps us going.
What an incredible post! Can’t thank you enough for those words.
How kind of you to comment, Chelsea. Thank you.
I love your example. If our faith can keep our hearts at peace, we can be
effective for Him, if and when we can give the grace or truth needed.
So true, Ruth.
What a beautifully written piece. The scrubbing and cleansing and sweet fragrances and the struggle. In my struggle I constantly feel like God is disappointed. But when I ask Him how to fix it, there’s nothing I can do. It’s painful and inescapable. Your insight brings comfort. Heard tonight, “the pain pushes until the vision pulls.” You have vision. Hope keeps us going.
He’s as disappointed in you as you are in your kids. *smile*
Beautiful Cathee! Your prayer, your words, and your heart are beautiful!
Sometimes sharing our ache is the only thing that helps others. Thank you, Linda.
Beautifully written! I was choked up at some points. Your words classify and offer clarification to mixed emotions. I love how your imagination is still soaring while washing the laundry!