PRAYER APATHY

"and we can be confident that he will listen to us whenever we ask him for anything in line with his will. and if we know he is listening when we make our requests, we can be sure that he will give us what we ask for."

1 John 5:14-15

lately i've been struggling with a bad case of prayer apathy. there have been very few times in the last several months when i have been able to pray with confidence. some times it just feels hopeless. do my itty bitty prayers really mean anything? God's will is going to happen whether or not i send out a few prayers, isn't it?

prayer has become a boring and dull monologue for me. there's no passion, no eager expectation, no anything. i tried to figure out when this apathy set in. the most obvious answer i could think of was when i prayed and prayed on a flight home to san antonio that i would be able to say goodbye to grandpa. when i realized i had missed him by four hours i wanted to crumble up into a ball in the middle of the airport and scream at God at the top of my lungs. in retrospect i can understand why my prayer was never answered. it was selfish of me to want my grandpa to suffer longer just for me to say goodbye. who knows what might of happened if i got that chance to say goodbye. what if it wasn't goodbye at all but rather a plea for him to hang on and stay with us. who knows what that could have done to him. i might not have even been able to handle seeing him all hooked up and connected to tubes either. now i don't have to try to push a way a horrible memory of him in the hospital but instead get to remember him the way he would have wanted me to. i can totally understand why God didn't answer my prayer but did it even matter that i prayed? does it really make a difference somehow?

last week les got a crazy call from his sister. his entire family has been praying for her for a long time, praying that she would finally understand what Christ could do in her life. it looks like their years of prayer haven't been in vain. it seems like she's finally taking ownership of her actions for the past 42 years and is grasping onto the concept of grace. maybe those years invested in prayer are really worth it after all.

the apathy kicker for me was last night. i was reminded of when Jesus prayed in the garden of gethsemane in Matthew 26:36-46. "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Jesus prayed this three times. Since he was 100 percent man and God he had to know that there was no way for the cup to taken from him and yet he prayed about it anyway.

it occured to me that lately i've been tackling prayer all wrong. i've been treating it as a one way give me this and give me that monologue. prayer isn't just about a one way communication with God but rather a two way dialogue or conversation with God. this morning i broke through the apathy and realized i've been missing out on a lot. i've been missing out on just chatting and and hanging out with my Creator and Savior. all this time He's been waiting patiently and missing me too.

ALMOST..

last night as i laid in bed i was excited by the possibility of writing a post about going an entire week without having a single bout of morning sickness. although i've been feeling a whole lot better, for some reason my stomach would protest against feeding two people on thursdays and sundays. to my surprise, this sunday came and went and nothing happened. all i had left to conquer was today and i would have made it an entire wonderful and glorious week without getting sick. today, as i leaped over my desk and ran like a mad woman to the bathroom the word "almost" popped up into my head. i almost made it an entire week and i almost didn't make it to the bathroom in time.

OTHER EMBARRASSING CONFESSIONS

scene from lunch today starring none other than myself:
"yes, i'd like to have the nastiest sandwich you have on the menu, the tunafish sub on honey oat with lettuce, extra tomatoes, black olives, onions and please top it off with the most disgusting condiment on the face of the earth, mayo. oh yeah and can you please make that a meal deal with milk and cookies please."

my husband almost fainted. i ate every inch of that six inch sandwich and loved every disgusting moment of it. i felt incredibly dirty afterwards but resigned to the fact that i'm pregnant and there's no use even pretending to have any pride or dignity left.

i've worn the same pair of overalls for five, count em 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, days in a row. my church is in the middle of revelatory which is held for an entire week every year to cast vision for the upcoming ministry year. i've seen the same people at my church every night for the past five days. there is no hiding the fact that i've worn the same pair of overalls for the past five days and three of those days i've also been sporting a mustard stain on them.

last weekend les and i were invited over to play games at one of our friends house and i managed to scream at him while playing speed scrabble in front of three other people two of which happen to be coworkers.

i write these things so that one day sweet Fin if you happen to be a boy you will show much pitty towards your pregnant wife who may at times appear to be possessed. she does love you and truly doesn't have control over what she eats or her actions. if you happen to be a girl, one day i hope you will read this when you too are expecting and realize you are not alone and that the insanity does only last for 9 or 10 months.

last night you were kicking up such a storm you were actually making my stomach jump and your dad felt you move for the first time. being able to finally share this pregnancy with your father and to see the look on his face while you moved has made every moment of this pregnancy chaos worth it.

WIGGLES & GUILTY PLEASURES

i think i finally felt little Fin move for the first time last night. Fin started squirming around while Les played his guitar. all this time i've secretly been poking and prodding at my stomach trying to get the little anklebiter to move and all Les has to do is pick up his guitar. it figures! Fin already likes his father better than me. what can i expect though, i probably keep poking the poor kid in the eye trying to get him to move.

i'm already disappointed in myself at my first attempts of motherhood and my attitude towards this pregnancy thing. i figure i should be nesting and eager to unpack all the boxes in the house and i should be glowing and quilting baby booties and blankies. instead i've failed to unpack a single box, i'm content that the babies room is unpainted and a disaster zone, i look haggard and unkept as opposed to rosey and glowing and i'm miffed at how my body has become alien like to me. i AM the debbie downer of pregnancy. recently though i've been reading all i can about dooce's take on pregnancy and childbirth and it makes me feel soooo much better. i'm not the only woman on the planet who isn't a perky pregnant princess.

dooce is my current guilty pleasure. i've had a plethora of others in the past but the two that would probably cause me the most grief was my failure to miss an episode of the anna nicole smith show and my secret love of ace of base. oh and there was that period of time in fifth grade when i did heart NKOTB. i even busted out my roommates old NKOTB tape during a sleepover i had for my youth girls and sung along to all the songs to the horror and mortification of the girls. i never bought any NKOTB fanfare with the exception of a tape or two. it is true that i never hung any of their posters hung on my walls and no i never like jordan. i always thought his brother jonathan was a whole lot cuter. if asked publicly i will admit to none of this.

AND OTHER STRANGE ODDITIES...

it has come to my attention this week that i actually got knocked up while still on the pill. i looked back to my old post about kicking the pill popping habit and did some math and realized that i got pregnant while i was still on birth control. oh i sounded so brave throwing away a pack of unfinished pills. whatever! i threw away the last week which is inactive anyway. that is the week my little Fin was conceived. it should have been impossible for me to be violated by les's evil "boys" that week anyway. at first i must admit i was pretty hacked at God. pill or no pill this pregnancy was supposed to happen. i figure this is the one experience that will test and grow me the most so this is why it's happening now.

i'm more relieved now than hacked. i've been whining and moaning about being pregnant but i'm the idiot who stopped taking the pill. i was bound to get pregnant sooner or later! what the heck did i expect? the thing is i stopped taking the pill because i had this gnawing inside that said i needed to trust God on this matter. i'm so glad i was obedient because who knows what would have happen to Fin if i had continue to stay on birth control. i could of had a miscarraige or Fin could have come out with three arms or something crazy like that. how perfect too! now i can say to teen girls "you think birth control is the answer, well i got knocked up while i was on it." what a great way to strike fear into their little hearts.

as for you little Fin, i have all the more reason to believe that you are an amazing blessing from God. now that i have stopped paying homage to the porcelean beast i can sit back and enjoy the ride we are on together. although i am still using all my off time to sleep because i am still extremely exhausted i love knowing that it's you under that new bulge that has popped out on my stomach.