Have you ever prayed a prayer that you knew wouldn’t get the answer you wanted?

I’m sure you have if you’ve spent any time on your knees.

As I grow older I find myself asking for things that I’m sure I won’t get and yet I think I need. I want things to be different I want the people I love to be closer to me. I want my dad’s lungs to heal. Forget that the man smoked at an early age and it was a bit late when he finally gave it up.

I want

I want

I want

I need at times and I don’t always seem to get that or so I think.

Something is hurting me deep, I ask for a hardened heart. God has done it before so why not for me?

He just will not do it so I go on hurting. But hurt has it befits. We learn from the mistakes that lead us to pain.

When I was growing up we had a floor furnaces. My siblings and I learned a bit from this furnaces. Ok my brother and I taught mom a thing or two from them. Mark taught her that if you pee on it steam will rise. I showed how hard it is to clean puke out of the thing during a bout with the flue. God bless her. We all most likely learned by touch how hot it would get. I remember on cold mornings trying to hover over the thing to get warm and not get so close to get burned.

Burns hurt and they scar. I know that first hand, rather first leg. When I was young a hot pot of coffee was spilled onto my nylon pant wearing leg. Now those of you who know a bit about things that melt know what happens to nylon. I ended up with third degree burns. I don’t really have a scar on the outside but I did hold on to one for a while on the inside. I thought that the darker line would show and that everyone would see that I was scared. I know now that people have real scars that show and if they have the courage to show them then I shouldn’t worry about mine.

We could go our whole lives without a scar but it’s not the way God made us. I believe he wants us to feel pain. I think He hasn’t hardened my heart because He knows I need my heart. I need to feel the pain as it happens so that I can better deal with all of what life is going to give me. If you stuff it all away then when you find it you’ll most likely try to take it all at once. That’s a breakdown in the making.

Instead of a hardened heart He’s given me people at my church, friends with the wisdom of what I’m dealing with, family to cling to, my loving children, and a steady ground to stand on.

I thank God for unanswered prayers.

I thank God for wisdom beyond me.