[praying/whining]

Summer is good for a lot of things, and lately it’s been good at helping me see my insides more clearly. And although these weeks have been full of some very special and temporary things, even more than the sunshine or hiking Inspiration Peak or leisurely dinners on the deck, I’ve craved being settled. Being rooted, planted, and settled deeply in something wider than myself. Living as I tend to do – scattered and small-minded – just makes me feel untethered. My life can become about a lot of little things if I let it, and recently I have. I need to settle down, or as my roommates of Tavilla 302 would say, simmer down.

So a little while ago I started praying a sort of scary prayer, and asked God to shake me out of the shell I had constructed around my own small life, because that shell stopped me from noticing anything bigger. I say it was scary because I assumed that I needed something jarring or difficult to reorient me. I asked to be rocked and reeled, hoping that when the dust settled I too would be more settled.

As it usually seems to go, God has been responding to me in his own, sometimes hazy, and often completely out-of-left-field way. While I prayed dramatically he responded quietly, taking my whining in stride. Instead of hitting me hard with a lesson, he’s been shifting my perspective in really gentle ways, like a slow Saturday with time to think or a three-hour, super energizing conversation with a good friend. During this conversation Katie reminded me, probably without even realizing, that God is perfectly able to work through little moments as well as big. His answers to my prayers have been very sweet recently and I’m grateful for the ways he settles us down. Grateful that the people we love pray on our behalf and that we can take on the privilege of praying for them. Praying, or whining as I often do, is a gift.