Light

That night I lay on the floor in my room, crying from the aggravation of the pain. I wanted some kind of relief. A blue towel on navy blue carpet was all I could see. My nose pressed against the rough material. The towel needed to be washed. I didn't know what to pray or what to say. Every prayer technique I had ever learned seemed so worthless at times like this.

"I don't even know what to say," I moaned.

I had tried praying all my life, and few were the times that I had ever had confidence that I would get an answer. But then a voice came to me and said, "Ask me for my promise. Ask me to give it to you."

Promise? Oh. I remembered...Behold, I will do a new thing. Now will I do it; shall ye not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The promise that had come to me earlier, he wanted me to ask him to give it to me. Asking God for a promise he had already given me didn't make any sense. Then he said,

"I am teaching you how to pray. Ask me for my promise."

And so I did.

Then he told me, "Get up and get something to eat."

In a few minutes I returned to my room with a plate of cold meat, cheese, and grapes. I ate as one who had been fasting, completely enjoying each morsel. In my heart now was a certainty that God would answer. He burned a foreign truth into my heart that night: When you speak, I hear. You have my heart. Your words are the command that makes resistance die, that makes good spring forth; for as my child, you have the same power as my Son. That's why he died.

That night, I got off the floor, fed myself and took rest as the daughter of God, confident that he would answer every prayer I prayed. I would speak now as his daughter instead of speaking to convince him that he should answer my prayer. I had his heart. I was my Daddy's girl.

Golden Promises

The sun rose like a golden god over the horizon. Yellow rays of gold like fine chains on a woman's necklace shot through the pines. Computer and pancakes. Coffee and sliced pears. Breakfast by the living room window while typing on my PC was supposed to inspire me for the day, yet I still felt this dull ache in the back of my throat, like something was slowly squeezing it, not to kill, but to slowly suffocate. The tension had been there for 10 days now. Was it going to end? When? How long could I survive with this feeling of stifled life in me?

Then the promise came. "I will do a new thing. Now it shall spring forth. Shall you not know it? I will even make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert." The feeling was still there, but the promise had come.