Angry Cuddles
One of my kids told me the other day that there’s something he doesn’t understand about our relationship. Evidently, even when he’s mad at me, he still wants me to snuggle him.
If you know my kids at all, you can probably figure out which child it was.
If you know me at all, you can probably guess that I wasn’t positive if he was insulting me or giving me a compliment.
I mentioned this anecdote recently, and the older, wiser woman I was speaking to turned my child’s words around on me and asked me if I could say the same about God. Even when I’m mad at Him, do I still want to be close to Him? Do I still want to climb into His arms?
She may have been hitting below the belt.
This hasn’t been the easiest of seasons. There have been a lot of unanswered prayers. When I say “unanswered prayers,” I mean prayers that God has said “Not yet” to and prayers He’s flat out answered with “No.”
There’s been a lot of silence. There have been a lot of tears.
There have been a lot of days when crawling into God’s lap has felt like an exercise in futility and acknowledging my own anger towards Him has been uncomfortable, veering into painful.
I know I don’t serve a vending machine God. And I know prayer isn’t some form of magical wish fulfillment. And yet… And yet…
When we know God is powerful and when we know God is Provider and when we know God is Healer and when we know God is loving and when we know that He does not leave us alone—when we know all of these things and yet He still doesn’t act on behalf of His children, what do we do?
We remind ourselves that He sees things we don’t see, and that He works on a timeline that is different than ours…
And we crawl into His lap, and He lets us cry out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” He lets us sob, “Lord, have mercy. Christ, have mercy.” He lets our broken, “God, I believe; help my unbelief!” sink into His endless, loving heart without shaming us for being human, for being limited in our experience and our vision, for being in need.
I spoke to my youngest today about why we keep praying for things that God keeps saying, “Not yet” to (or possibly “No”—we don’t always know in the moment). The kids have been an integral part of praying for a Big Prayer day after day for over five months now. A Big Prayer that has Big Consequences.
“Why do we keep asking God for the same thing, over and over again,” I asked her during a game of Phase Ten.
“Well,” she said, looking up through bangs that need trimming, “I guess it’s kind of like making a wish.”
“Hmm. So prayer is just asking for things we wish would happen?”
“Sure.”
“Let me ask you this. Do I always say yes when you ask me for things?”
“Of course not!” she laughed.
“Then why do you want to spend time with me?”
She looked at me like this was the dumbest question possible. “Because I like you.” I heard the unspoken, “Duh.”
“That’s what I want you to see about prayer. We keep coming back because we’re wanting to spend time with God. Even when He says no. Because He loves us. And we love Him back (or at least we want to!). The asking is part of it. But more than anything, it’s the being together. Because when you love someone, you want to be with them.”
And then I proceeded to trounce her at Phase Ten.
These are the conversations I’m having with my kids these days. But, always and especially, these are the conversations I’m having with myself. Because it’s hard to want good things and to continue being told, “No. Not yet. Wait. Keep asking.” It’s hard to not trick myself into thinking that if I just did something different (if I just jumped through the right hoops, if I just said the right combination of words, if I just tried harder), that God would finally give me what I want.
It’s hard to keep climbing into God’s lap when sometimes I am angry with Him—because I am still learning to know Him in the way my kids know and love and trust me. Even after all these years.
But I know—I know, I know, I know—that He loves me even more than I love my kids, that He is worth trusting far more than I’m worthy of being trusted, and that this is not the end of the story. And if I know all that, then surely, God, who knows all things, knows my anger and my doubts and my struggles for what they are and is fully capable of loving me through them.
So. Back onto His lap I go. He has room enough for me even when I come with the weight of unwanted feelings and unanswered prayers and unlovely hurts.
He has room enough.
