She stood before me holding poster board wrapped around her body, hoping I wouldn’t notice the unfinished blank spaces, her eyes wide and her chin high. She stared at some point behind my head, anxious not to meet my eyes. Her siblings raced out the door to load into the van for co-op. I repeated my question, “Why isn’t your history project finished?”
A long pause.
Then, slowly, haltingly, “I don’t… know.”
I raised one eyebrow and willed myself to keep smiling gently. “Why don’t you know?”
“I didn’t… know… what to write.”
“Do you remember when I helped you with it and we talked about the picture to color and what to say? When I left you, you were working on it. What happened?”
“I forgot the words.”
“Oh, I understand. I forget things a lot. Did you come and ask me for help and I didn’t answer?”
Longest pause. Here was the rub.
“No.”
Every word with this child is carefully thought out, weighed and measured. One must wait in patience, even when my teeth are ground to nubs in my mouth and the inside of my cheeks are bitten to pieces. I must wait… and smile. Gentle yet persistent. She will seek me out. She’s learning to. But it is a hard lesson to learn, to ask for help. She wants to do it herself, to be right on her own, to pretend that nothing is hard for her.
“Mommy?”
“Yes.”
She handed me a pen. “Will you help me write it?”
Six little words, but they were hard fought. I smiled as if this wasn’t the end of a long battle and settled down in front of the poster board. “Absolutely. What do you want to say about this picture?” I pointed.
She took a deep breath and rattled off fact after fact, proof that her struggle had never been in the understanding, but only in the asking.
Our time to save this little poster board was short, but when I finished writing and handed her the pen, I reached my arms open wide and welcomed her into a strong embrace. “I’m glad you asked me for help. I will always help you when you need it. Did you think I wouldn’t?”
She shook her head as she nuzzled her nose into my belly button. “I know you will.”
I waited, thoughtful, before I asked, “So why won’t you ask Mama for help?”
Now here came the wail, her own confusion at her behavior apparent. “I don’t knowwwwww.”
We hugged it out and she left me a few minutes later, only slightly late to co-op, with a smile on her face and a little skip in her step. I took a deep breath and shook my head. My prideful, perfectionist, independent little girl… why won’t she ask for help??
It was only later that I saw the mirror being held to my face that day. I had a secret wish, one I’d never even dared utter aloud because it seemed impossible. I’d only ever dared even speak it once to my husband, in a sort of, “maybe someday…” sort of voice. Because – only by a miracle would this desire come true. It was unrealistic, pie-in-the-sky, not at all practical.
As I waited and wished and struggled with this desire, it took me ages to whisper it to God, even though He knew it before I ever knew myself. And when I did begin to pray for it, I told God exactly how I wanted him to answer this prayer. It was the only answer I saw, the only way that would be possible, so surely He should do it my way, right?
I wonder if God bites his cheeks or grinds his teeth to nubs when his babies are willful and their vision is small?
A few days after the poster board incident, despite my pride, despite my resistance to seeking help, God proved Himself kind and oh-so-good. He answered my secret prayer in a totally unexpected way. And it was so good, y’all, I had to lie down on the floor just to take it all in. It wasn’t at all the way I had told Him to do it (Oh, my hubris!!). But it was a sweet gift.
The next Sunday, I stood in church and worshipped in gratefulness, humbled at how He had heard my tiny desire, the secret whisper, and, He didn’t have to, but He’d shown me kindness. A little hand reached into mine while we sang and I remembered her struggle to ask for help.
Then the mirror reflected back to me how our patterns were so similar. My trouble had not been in the understanding of God’s faithfulness. No, I have stones of remembrance in my own life and an entire Bible full of monuments to how God provides. Just like my daughter, my trouble was in the asking, in admitting I couldn’t fix something on my own. Even when I asked, I dared to tell God how he ought to fix it, as if my human solution was the only way.
Eugene Peterson paraphrases Romans 8:26-27 this way:
If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. [The Holy Spirit] does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God
So many times, I’m halfway through wrestling a problem to the ground before I remember to pray. I am too dependent on my own plan to fix things, my own solution strategy, too determined to pull myself up by the bootstraps and handle this on my own. Often, it is only when I am brought low, defeated, that I remember to look up, to beg for help.
I only wish I didn’t have to keep learning the hard way, hiding my half-empty poster board in front of a Holy Father who sees and knows what I need long before I ever stop striving enough to figure it out.
Yesterday, our pastor encouraged us to cultivate a healthy consciousness of the reality of the Holy Spirit. Just like I am always on call to answer my daughter’s requests for help, the Spirit is ready, willing, and way better at fixing things than I am. And when we don’t even know what to ask for, Pastor says we can simply ask the Holy Spirit to “Please give me what I need.”
Six little words.
The privilege to speak them was hard fought, bought by Jesus on the cross, gifted to me as a recipient of grace. May I learn not to take it for granted, to ignore and stubbornly reject the opportunity to seek Actual Heavenly Guidance throughout my days. And when I forget and go haring off in my own direction, I am grateful for the mercy that is offered, the arms flung wide to receive me back into the safe and loving embrace of my Father.