Sammiest

There are things you pray for and it just doesn't seem to matter or make any difference. And all the while you're struggling with that and griping about it, other things you think of as little side prayers, or just wishes, brief forays into the optative mood, not really prayers at all, are being answered in droves. And of course one of the larger life questions is, what do you do with these gratuitous divine teases: denigrate them for not being the issues you prioritized, or accept God's gifts, even if you think he's poking a little gentle fun at you in the process?

And so, vis-a-vis me and my optatives, the Rudds called during Peep Jousting (won, incidentally, in fine form by Kent) at Lower Greenville's 13th (!) annual easter brunch. And so, just as the Celtic Tenebrae service was beginning on Friday evening, Jon and Abigail walked in, teleported magically from St. Louis, unannounced and most welcome. (And then to brunch they brought the (poo-flinging) Sam for whom this series of three posts is named.) And thus as I was rooting through the vermin housing proj--er, woodpile behind my shed, whaddayaknow, the hammock frame I had not been looking for but had been wanting. (Props to Amber for foreseeing that I would find one.) And so, just as I was despairing of my kids ever having again, on my watch while they were at home with us, an adult baptism to witness, Sarah and Adam call up, and say she wants to be baptized. And sure enough, microbiology be damned, she was, right there in fetid and teeming White Rock Lake, Sunday morning around 7:30am. And so Scotty and Heather returned from what had been home, and said their main discovery was that this was home, and was where they were supposed to be.

None of these were my prayer priorities. And none of them were, actually, about me--they were about developments in the lives of Joshua and Kristen, Kent and Gail, Jon and Abigail, Heather and Scotty, Sarah and Adam. And yet: how can I hear and see them except as "I love you" valentines from a God who loves me, who loves us, in detail?

Providence will out. The Big Things I pray about will get dealt with. Money stuff will be made to work, somehow--as the guy in "Shakespeare in Love" said, I don't know how, but it'll probably involve a bit with a dog. Jonathan will end up at a great school, cuz there are no sucky ones on his list. Sarah and Steven will get married this weekend, and first Lauren and Danny and then Sarah and Adam will get married this summer. I / we will get to stand by watching, holding their coats and looking on approvingly. I'll get a teaching job somewhere...or end up tossing boxes at UPS or something. I'll doubtless present some papers and get some rejections. I'll get published or I won't. I might have more impact if I don't, who knows. We'll sell the house or we won't, and if we don't, we'll either find a way to keep living in it and affording it, or we'll lose it to The Man and go live in the proverbial 1971 Ford Gran Torino up on blocks. And we'll be fine. Because providence will out: God--the one you get to know via getting to know Jesus--is a god who plans things that are for the good of his people, and not evil. And not because we're so nifty, but because he's that good and that creative, that good thing he plans for us is, minus the losses due to our own idiocies, just what we will get.


Praise, indeed, God, from whom all blessings, desired and undreamed of, flow.