I’ve been hoarding my desires in prayer, bringing to the light only those things that I want most - protection from the virus, safe delivery of this baby, and not to be separated from him or my husband. I’ve prioritized these requests, and hidden away everything else.
I haven’t shared with God so many of my other desires. Thinking them small or less important, I keep them to myself. Like a child making out a Christmas list, I’ve presented him with only what is most important (in my own estimation) for to me to receive.
How did I get so mixed up?
God is not Santa Claus or even a benevolent parent whose good will I seek to manipulate. His generosity has no limits, and he does not tire of my requests the way I sigh at getting up to make a new snack, open another juicebox, or play just one more game. He knows my neediness because he chose to make me this way.
In withholding my desires from God, I have been withholding my heart. Just as I love to hear my little girl chatter away at bedtime, making all her plans for tomorrow, so too does God want to be “let in” on the desires of my heart. Not because he will grant me every one of them - for my own good I know that he won’t. The point is not in the getting. It’s in the telling.
God is not a wish-granting factory. There is no proper procedure to observe. There is no need to proceed with caution.
He can take it all.
My heart is swirling right now with so much more than prayers for safety. Worry about my older two adjusting, being away for the nights we’re in the hospital. Concern for the imposition that creates on the families caring for them. Gratitude that we have their generosity to rely on. Wounds of anger, hurt, and betrayal at promises unkept. Anxiety about how my husband will handle caring for all of us as I recover and we adjust to the new normal, this time without the extra hands that usually accompany the appearance of a new baby. The desire to begin natural labor and avoid the dangers of interventions that lead to risky C-section. The desire to begin labor RIGHT NOW, to hasten these last few days before meeting and holding our little one. The ache for the moment they place him on my chest. The hope for a healthy baby and smooth delivery to make those first precious moments ones of joy and not of worry. All of these concerns and so much more preoccupy me.
And yet, in prayer, I pretend they aren’t there beneath the surface. I keep them from God, only showing him the most important requests. If I only give him these few, then he will grant my wishes.
Except, God is not a genie.
Prayer is not about curating a wishlist. It’s about intimacy. God already knows the desires of my heart; he wants me to bring them to him. Not to inform him. Not to earn them. Just to be curled up close to him, his little girl with nothing to hide.
Okay, God.
I’m done hiding.
Let’s take these out one by one and look at them together. I know that you are a Good Father, and I choose to trust you. I see it now - the poverty of what I had before. Prayer as wishing, rooted in fear. I can be done with that now.
Now I am ready for what you have for me. Plans different than my own, I’m sure, but good. Better, even, although it make take time to see just how. I can surrender all of these things to you.
Because, important as they are, I’d rather just have you.