Praying Over the Big Stuff

It all feels like big stuff right now, doesn't it? Fires on one coast and floods on the other, and in between, a whole host of heartaches that affect each of us in personal ways. It's so much to absorb.

A couple of nights ago, I couldn't sleep, so I went into the living room to pray out loud while Ryan slept. I prayed over the things that were weighing on my heart, and then I started praying about this big old hurricane swirling at sea.

I wasn't sure how to pray about that storm. Should I pray that it swirled right on around and went back out to sea? Should I pray that it just lost interest and fizzled in oblivion? Should I pray for protection and wisdom for those on shore because it seemed unlikely that any kind of escape would happen?

That night, I prayed for the storm to (in the words of my friend Brent) "march right back out to sea, young lady." And I prayed if it wouldn't do that, it would just break up and lose its incredible vitality. I know that either option isn't impossible, even if both seem unlikely, and that night, I felt led to pray big over a big storm.

I've prayed over big storms before. I'm not talking about hurricanes and tornadoes (though I have prayed over those types of storms, too.) I'm talking about storms of the soul that threaten to leave as much emotional wreckage as these natural disaster storms leave in physical evidence. I've prayed for those soul storms to break up, turn around, disappear - anything that will bring relief from the suffocating destruction I felt in the moment.

Sometimes it has happened as I asked. Miraculous, God-saturated answers have arrived, and I've celebrated those answers. Other times the answers came more in the form of something God wanted for my life more than something I wanted for my life. He knew what I needed, and He could see how the outcome of the storm in front of me could impact the happenings down the line, far beyond what I had the ability to understand.

In those moments, it's really hard to be vocal in praise. I was talking about this with my sisters just this week. I'd stumbled upon an Instagram post (I have no idea what happened or anything else about the family, but I know they just lost a preschool aged daughter) that blew me away. The mother said, in part, "Through it all...we can still say that God is good. The God who never had to give us this gift in the first place is good." (credit: @madisonviningblog)

Wow.

That's courageous. It's true, of course, and from my seat far, far from the eye of that heart-storm, I can agree with its truth. But for this dear grieving mother to utter those words while the winds are still blowing and the rain is still falling is powerful and convicting.

Some of you are in the path of these fires and floods. The literal ones. Others of you are in the middle of heart fires and floods. You're praying and maybe it's hard to pray big and bold. Be big and bold anyway. Of course my human heart hopes God answers in the way you desire, but if He doesn't, I hope He can help you see how His no is at work for you in ways you can't know right now.

None of it is easy. But in all of it, I know He is good. And in my own moments of confusion and hurt (over whatever might be before me), I hope I never lose sight of that truth.