Goodbye Sneaky God

It’s time to chuck my sneaky God theology once and for all.

I learned today that God answered a prayer I do not remember praying.

I was good and ready to write this post. I was going to talk about God being sneaky.

I was going to write about the time in my life when I didn’t want God to show up, but he did anyway, just to spite me.

I was going to say that God showed his sneaky face just when I didn’t want him to.

That’s how I remember it.

I remember running hard and fast and cynically.

I remember I had decided that life was worth it even without a god to believe in.

I remember cussing Him out for injustice. I remember being angry.

And, of course, I remember the shift.

I remember the unwarranted fits of compassion that began to spring up in my life. I remember feeling joy and hope and love that I couldn’t rationally explain. I remember the first time I prayed to Love.  I remember the voices that told me I was ugly worthless boring fat stupid had been silenced.

But I don’t remember asking for it.

In this post I was going to write about the ceaseless prayers of my mom. How the moment I started trusting in God my mind flashed to the prayers she must have faithfully prayed for my transformation.


Because I stood there, bewildered by the Love I had experienced.  


And all I could utter was, “I never asked you to show your compassion to me. I never asked to be transformed or to love myself.”


 and  [Mom did] echoed in my head.

Though my prayers ran out, hers were unceasing.

Though I swore off God and church and hypocrisy for good, she affirmed my inherent worth whether or not I ever called myself a Christian again.

I don’t pretend to know how God works or why or when He answers prayers, but I do know He answered hers.  That was going to be the point of the post, and it still is.

But today I learned that she wasn’t the only one praying for my transformation, praying for God to show up.

When looking back in my journal to write this, I came across a small smattering of words that I don’t remember ever putting to paper, but they’re mine alright with the capitalized Rs and colored ink. These words form a prayer that (apparently) changed everything.

I wrote,

“I am asking out of what my head tells me is weakness and my heart tells me is a yearning for the Love you can fulfill….

please, show me that you are here with me

Amen”

Amen?! I even wrote an Amen?! That’s a prayer for sure. But I don’t remember saying it or writing it.

I do know that shortly after I wrote this I experienced grace and healing and forgiveness like I had never known.

I do know that He did indeed show me that He was and is HERE WITH ME.


God answered my prayer. 


God answered my mom's prayer.


But more than that, God showed up.