I hadn’t intended to spend the afternoon couch-ridden. After all, Halloween was approaching, and everywhere I looked told the story of a job needing done. There were clothes to fold, meals to make, and Dalmatian spots to paint on an infant onesie because what do you mean it would cost me $30 for my one-month-old to take one picture next to her firefighter brother and spend the rest of the night sleeping inside?
But Luke fell asleep early, his nap time coinciding beautifully with Lainey Linn’s afternoon snack. I settled him into his crib and then sat down for a feeding, well aware that this meal might just send her into a milk coma and I could finally, blissfully get some things done. As she dozed off in my arms, I couldn’t help but notice how cuddly she was. How comfy I was. How precious this moment. How long it might be before it happened again.
So I stayed. I shimmied down to the couch’s corner and nestled my newborn’s head into the crook of my neck. I was too caffeinated to sleep, but too cozy to work. I drank deeply of the rhythmic rise and fall of her little chest, but then, admittedly, got bored after a few breaths and wished the remote were closer. I sighed. No remote, no phone, no books in reach. The slightest movement might wake her, and waking her would surely wake Luke, thereby concluding our cuddles forever.
Just when I convinced myself I could be okay with boredom for the sake of sleepy snuggles, I felt something behind my back. Flimsy but firm, its edges sharp but not enough to scrape. It was my prayer journal, tattered and worn, pulled once again from the spot on the shelf and converted to a canvas for mowers.
You read that right — mowers. Not what I thought would be etched all over my journal at this stage of life. Flowers? Maybe. Calligraphied Scripture? Sure. But my sweet mower-loving boy, whose twenty-month brain is largely consumed by those coveted cutters, insists that every page of my prayer journal has a mower in the margins.
So, assuming I’d be nap-trapped for the foreseeable future, I picked up the notebook and began turning pages. More than just mower after mower, I started to notice something powerful: answered prayer after answered prayer. In many cases, I realized I was living the reality of prayers I didn’t even remember praying. Small things — good weather, good sleep, a sweet Sunday with family. Then the big ones: A healthy baby. A quick delivery. For our very dearest loved ones to finally conceive. Even in times when prayers were not answered as I hoped, they were answered in the way that was best. Even when they were not answered in the timeline I envisioned, they were answered in the time that was best.
I was baffled (and ashamed) by the amount of prayers I wrote halfheartedly with weak and waning faith — casting a sideways glance at the Starbreather and hoping He might just come through. There were so many times I even cried out to God frustratedly because of how I thought a situation was going to turn out. Even more humbling is the amount of times I begged for my situation to change, only to look back and see that what God changed was me.
This prayer journal is a modern day Ebenezer stone as I daily wade the river of life’s trials and temptations. Page after page tells the story of his faithfulness, and that’s crucial, because I still have family friends being ravaged by cancer, loved ones being laid to rest, and relationships in need of constant reconciliation. I’ve had five friends miscarry in the past three months alone. There are many times when God feels far and our desperate cries for help are seemingly met with silence. But these pages sing of victory, declaring like a banner that our God is faithful. They also serve as sobering reminders that God doesn’t exist to grant me all my wishes — I exist because He made me for his glory. Even (as is often the case) if that doesn’t look how I think it should.
The prayers that feel unanswered bring a desperation for Heaven, which is, in fact, something I prayed for. The heartbreak serves to glorify God as we are confirmed to the image of Jesus, which is also a thing that I prayed for. The very nearness we’re met with in every tribulation confirms I’m getting just what I prayed for.
So now I can see, from an afternoon spent nap-trapped and a few dozen barely legible prayers, that He really is a faithful God. May these prayer journals bring me through river after river as I see that He has not for a moment forgotten about me.
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