The One Where Jesus is a Show-off

Category: dribblings

Sometimes a pal will text me something serious (it happens) so I commiserate and also send a little prayer. It’s usually a no big deal, short prayer. I’m not bragging about this, okay? I’m just giving you some background info here. Anyway, this keeps happening, and the response from my pals has been really sweet. So I recommend this because how many times do you get a text that’s like, “Working with the public is the bane of my existence!” and you can be all, “Dude, I KNOW.” and then add something like, “Jesus, please, you gotta help us love people like you love people cos man, I cannot love people without you. Thank you. Amen.” See? See how easy?

So like I say, this has had a positive effect, on ME. I don’t even KNOW what it’s doing to my friends, that’s their business. But now, I keep noticing that when I get a petty (or maybe not so petty) event in my life I totally lose it for a moment and then like a flash I’m all, “F it. Let’s pray.”

I realize that by saying the F word I’m completely showing the world that I’m a lousy Christian. I’m okay with that, for now.

So I’ve got this pal, we’ll call her Jen. And she had some family drama involving her brother and sis-in-law. the SIL was jealous and weird about the brother’s family being so close and so blah blah blah troublecakes. This lady (and husband and kid) came in to my workplace the other day, and I don’t know her from Adam, but I see her last name is familiar and I’m like, “Oh snap. I know who this is. That’s Jen’s bro, and that is Troublecakes. I’m gonna make her eat it.”

But like, AM I going to make her eat it? And how? What should I do?

So what I did was all, “Hey, your last name here, you have to be related to Jen, right?”

“Yes! I’m her sister-in-law, and that’s her brother.”

“Well, let me tell you. We LOVE Jen here. She is THE BEST. In fact, her whole family is great!”

She agreed. She was actually a really nice person. But it’s not like I’m not going to stop feeding her how great Jen is.

“Oh, and Jen’s kids are so sweet. It’s ridiculous how great her kids are.”

She agreed. She was all smiles. And inside I was happy cos all I did was say true things.

So I text Jen and say, “Hey I just met your SIL and I totally sang your praises, so I hope that did some good cos you really are a great human.”

Jen was tickled about it. She then told me that the SIL had, a couple of months ago, apologized for being troublecakes. And things were getting better. So that’s cool, right? Right. But she then said that she and her brother were still not as close as they used to be and that she missed that and prays for it a lot.

Well. That got me right in the feels. Like, my heart hurt. All I could think was oh man, what if my brother and I weren’t pals anymore? I wouldn’t want to live in a world like that. So I’m like, whoa. We gotta pray about this. Perfect. I’ll do up a quick text prayer! NBD.

But I was at work, and for some reason, it all of a sudden got very busy at work. I was like, “Jesus! Come on! We gotta pray.” and I’d take my phone out and swipe the screen and the circ desk phone would ring. “NOOO. I’m tryna-” Someone would need computer lab help. Then things would quiet down and I’d get my phone out and swipe the screen and someone would come up to the desk with 20 books to check out. “LORD. We GOTTA– Jen’s BROTHER.” These are the prayers I’m saying: “Nooo. I’m tryna- Jen’s brother! But. LORD. COME ON.” I couldn’t even send her a text that said, “Fix it, Jesus.” And I don’t know why I wanted to pray right then, you know? Like, it was just inside my bones that it needed praying immediately.

For 40 WHOLE, COMPLETE MINUTES… I try to get a prayer out, and am thwarted EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.

Then I get a text from Jen: “Jaimie, I don’t know what you just did, but my brother called me out of the blue!”

Wha? I didn’t DO anything! I never got a chance to. So with tears on my face I say, “Jesus! You total show-off! THANK YOU. Thank you. Thank you!” and THEN I get a moment of time to text Jen back that I’m crying and that God is awesome. And she said that she was crying and that yes, God is amazing.

So here I am at the end of the story and I’m like, why am I sharing this? I don’t know. I thought it was a really cool thing that Jesus heard/honored a prayer that I couldn’t verbalize, that I could just feel real hard in my bones. Show-off!

 

 

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