Is It Earnest Prayers, Interesting Prayers or Prayers that Earn Interest?

Is It Earnest Prayers, Interesting Prayers or Prayers that Earn Interest?

I’m a single mother. Well, I am every Tuesday morning when my husband abandons me for bible study. Some of those days are blissfully uneventful and then at times they stop a centimeter shy of triage.

Last week, my 7-year-old son started by grabbing bacon from his sister’s plate. Then he waved off any t-shirt pulled from the dryer and refused to clean his teeth. I had no choice but to brush for him and leave him looking as that rabid raccoon spotted up a tree in the Jones’ backyard a few years ago.

 The death blow that morning was the disappearance of a Size 2 tennis shoe. After a 25 cent reward inspired my daughter to find the shoe, I dropped both at his feet and said, “Joe, straighten up and put these on. NOW.”

Cross-browed and cross-armed at hearing my demand, he looked as a blond curly-headed Kim Jong-Il after learning of a threatened labor strike at North Korea’s only khaki jumpsuit manufacturing plant.

Sitting down directly across from him, I shut my eyes.

 BREATHE. I began practicing what I learned from Elise Faust’s stress relief program at the last Chamber of Commerce, Women in Business gathering. Following her advice, I shut out everything and listened as air poured into my lungs and escaped out again. In and out. In and out.

Even as the pink slips were being drafted for my children at school, I wasn’t going to let my son control me. I sat seeing nothing but the inside of my eyelids. Feeling nothing but my chest expanding outward and pulling inward.

“Mama.” His insistent voice broke the silence. “Mama.”

Eyes closed, I kept my inward focus and breathed deeper. Deep breath in, deep breath out.

“Mama. You might as well stop praying – because it’s never going to work.”

Alright. I wasn’t just breathing. I was praying. “Dear God in heaven, please give me the ability to outwit, out-maneuver, outlast this child who has elevated defiance to an art form.”

Silence.

Silence from me. Silence from God. And from my child who I now suspected was hiding in my closet wrinkling everything beyond recognition.

Please tell me there’s a vault up in heaven. A vault with my child’s name. That every prayer offered upward does not tumble back to earth only to break into a billion unrecognizable bits of letters, commas, tear drops and sighs.

Please tell me that each prayer whether of praise or desperation whooshes into Joe’s vault just as the bank drive-through vacuums up my small deposits. And that as the weight of those prayers grow…so does their power.

Please tell me someday this heavenly debenture will mature into a young man who says “Please” and “Thank you”, opens doors with a smile and resists all temptations to pass gas in small closed spaces (at least in closed spaces smaller than four-door SVU).

For now I will keep breathing and making deposits. And pray for a return of biblical proportions.

This Wednesday’s Inspiring Woman is Dr. Elise Faust of Madison Family Chiropractors. Look to www.jamiemiles.com/blog for our e-conversation on her life, practice and stress relief advice. Wonder if she ever studied child psychology?