Prayers that Receive a "No"

Renewed in Truth Monthly | October 2023

Dear Readers! November is right around the corner! Have you found that corner yet? Whenever I use that saying, I can’t help but think of the Frog and Toad story, “The Corner” where the younger version of Frog searches for the corner that Spring is right around.

I hope you enjoy this month’s collection! Here’s a Table of Contents to help you peruse the content to your liking:

1. The Short Essay: Prayers That Receive a “No”

2. A Bit of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness (a collection of online pieces I loved)

3. From My Reading Stack (short reviews of the books I read this month)

4. Featured Picture Book

5. In Case You Missed It (summaries and links to my latest writing)

The Short Essay: Prayers that Receive a “No”

I did not want to have to send my husband and nearly three-year-old son to the hospital last week. From the moment the pharmacist said he may have croup, I prayed he wouldn’t have to go to the hospital over breathing issues.

Then one night before we climbed into bed, he called out and around his lips was blue.

Without a second thought, my husband loaded up a bag and took him to the hospital, while I lay in bed at home using anxiety-calming techniques.

Suffocation. Drowning. Vomiting. My three most debilitating phobias. And I fear them even more for my kids than myself. God, you know this—why did you let this happen? I prayed. I begged. I thought you had listened when he settled down in his bed with Roar the Dinosaur. But he still woke up crying, “Throat! Throat!”

For every prayer that God says, “No” to, I wonder if I could have ever done what Daniel’s friends did—even if he doesn’t, we will not worship your statues. I fear I don’t have an “Even If” faith.

I don’t have neat and tidy answers for why God allows these things. I could say it’s to make me stronger and to bring me to that “Even If” kind of faith. I could say it’s to make me more reliant on him, like the father who brought his demon-possessed son and wept, “I believe; help my unbelief!”

This is often where many stand and begin to wonder if God is real or if they really want to worship a God like this. A girl who was one of my best friends in Bible college, who stood at my side in my wedding as a bridesmaid, decided the latter. She wrote on Facebook one day, “Jesus will hurt you” and declared her renounced faith in the God who abandoned and traumatized her.

I can’t do that.

Not because I have greater faith than her. Not because I have greater knowledge than her. Because I have seen too much goodness from God to know this is the ending.

My son came home from the hospital in the night, well and fine. He didn’t need oxygen because, by the time they got to him in the ER waiting room, he had recovered physically. But I see the anxiety in him at bedtime, and I feel it clenched in my own chest.

Later that week, a friend said to me, “I don’t know how you did it with twins.”

I laughed and replied, “With A LOT of help.”

She said, “I know it must only be by the grace of God.”

I then recounted to her all the miraculous providence God wove together around the twin’s birth. He gave them to us after two miscarriages. Through many, many examples of “happenstance,” he provided a selfless, wise homeschooling family to work for me during the week while my husband worked so I didn’t drown or suffocate from diapers, bottles, laundry, and tears. (The short story: A family friend I didn’t know connected me with the homeschool family I didn’t know, and they didn’t know my family friend until they attended the homeschool family’s church by a great “coincidence”).

I am here, I still believe, not because of anything I have done, but because of all that he has done for me. I can’t deny it. He held me and provided for me even when I screamed at him with all my rage. And yet he still calls me beloved.

Though I may be able to say through tears and trembling, “Even if he doesn’t…” it is only because he has sustained me and he has shown me how good he truly is, and he won’t allow anything to snatch me from his strong hand.

Let’s celebrate in the comments the ways God has been faithful to us ↓

A Bit of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness

Shannon Harris Wasn’t Content with Being a Purity Culture Stage Hand by Rachel Joy Welcher. “We are stunning image-bearers of God, and we have inherited Adam’s sin. We are wonderfully made, and we fall short of the glory of God. Both are true and do not war against each other. I think Harris rightly warns us against “worm theology,” but where she falls short is this: If we only emphasize our goodness and deny our sin problem, we lose our need for repentance, which means we lose the gospel, which means we lose Jesus.”

Walking Ebenezers by Brianna Lambert. “This weekend I get to watch a friend walk down the aisle to a wonderful man. Our friendship blossomed in more peculiar of circumstances. I never expected her to become the pen pal that would fill my three children with needed encouragement and joy. I never dreamed that her experiences and testimony would be the very help I’d need to guide my own child through difficulties. But God did, because he gifted her to me—another Ebenezer, showing the sovereign care of a Father who not only moves the earth on its axis, but moves people and lives for the good of his children.

Leaving the Church You Love by

Brittany Allen

. “There’s a distinct kind of loss when you have to walk away from a church you love. The reasons can range from a change in theology, to relocating, to even painful realities like spiritual abuse. But sadness is the common thread no matter what the reason for leaving might be.”

On the Common 098: The Great Pumpkin and the True Meaning of Christmas by

Kelly Keller

. “Similarly, Linus’ eagerness to believe in the Great Pumpkin, despite his friends’ cynicism and outright hostility, lays a good groundwork for his faith. He is open to wonder. He desires sincerity, a feat that is downright noble in our age filled with sarcasm and skepticism. He is willing to believe in the supernatural. But consider the difference between his ‘belief’ in the Great Pumpkin versus his belief in the true meaning of Christmas. In October, he is frantic, nervous — he’s afraid if he says the wrong thing, he’ll get passed over. In December, he is settled, quietly confident that he knows the truth.”

All You Can Do by

Katie Blackburn

. “That happened to me, so I can feel and act like this. I don’t think that’s a good long term strategy. But asking God every day to make my heart a little more like his even while I’m sad, that feels like a better one. After all, Jesus had a moment of anger, not a ministry of one. The adversary is still my own sin. I can sense even now how the habits I practice in the middle of what’s hard will set up the trajectory of who I will be for the rest of my life.”

Will My Husband Still Think I’m Attractive as I Age? by Brittany Allen. “There’s still a desirability to be lived out as we age. Not for the world, but for our husbands. In a marriage where a man and woman are committed to love each other through each bodily change, there is attraction that deepens with time. It is often reported that couples have better sex in their 30s and 40s than in their 20s. The years of exploring and learning together only solidifies the bond. What else could be more attractive than two people giving themselves to only each other until death parts them? Can a fleeting thought of a handsome man or beautiful woman truly compare to life-long monogamy? And yet, being desired by our husband was never meant to satisfy.”

Reality Television and the State of Our Souls by Ashley Anthony. “While we want to believe that we are better than those we’re watching on screen, perhaps the fact that we’re still sitting in front of the television, watching the train wreck before us, proves that we’re not. Maybe, as we exist on a steady diet of altered interior lives and personalities, the “freaks” we see on the screen reflect us more than we’d like to admit.”

From My Reading Stack

He Is Strong by Emily Jensen. Have you ever felt weak? Not good enough? Unable to help or fix a problem? Emily Jensen tells us not only the times she has felt weak, but how resting in the strength of Christ has brought her through those uncertain and difficult times.

Not only is this book beautiful to look at, the words inside reflect the beauty of Christ and put him on display. What I love about this book is how it’s even built for times when we feel weak with short chapters that can be consumed in one sitting. If you are feeling weak these days, pick up a copy of this lovely devotional.

Tell it Slant by Brenda Miller and Suzanne Paola. If you’re looking to grow in creative nonfiction, this is the book to read. It read like taking an intensive workshop with two expert authors. This book defines creative nonfiction, differentiates it from various other forms, and offers various styles and variations of composition within creative nonfiction.

Each chapter begins with a short essay to demonstrate the topic of the chapter, walks you through directives and explanations, and ends by offering several real writing prompts based on what you just learned. Not your typical, dull prompts like, “Write about a dark and stormy night…” that you’ll never actually use. These prompts will form thoughtful essays. I highly recommend it! (Please note that this is a general trade book and not a Christian book and contains some language).

The Diary of a Country Priest by Georges Bernanos. In this literary historical fiction, the reader reads the honest, at times sporadic and incomplete, diary entries of a young Catholic priest living in a rural French community during the 1900s. It recounts his time in a small parish where it seems the members have little faith beyond their external religious work as he struggles with the suffering of severe stomach issues, attempting to connect with his flock and community, and often fighting to keep his own faith.

If you enjoy fast-paced, high-stakes, page-turning drama, this is not the book for you. But if you want a more slow, meditative book rich with spiritual reflection, I recommend this book. Though a Protestant, I gleaned much beauty and encouragement from this novel.

Featured Picture Book

The Girl Who Drew Butterflies: How Maria Merian’s Art Changed Science by Joyce Sidman

Did you know that in the 1600s insects and the like were considered unclean and even evil? Did you know that people believed they came from “spontaneous creation”—flies simply generated around a pile of horsemenure? Did you know that it was considered utterly un-ladylike to show any interest in such critters?

Maria Merian did—but she didn’t care. She not only painted beautiful and realistic artwork of them, but she stalked them and even kept some for observation. She wasn’t quite so sure that spontaneous generation could be right. In fact, she believed that maybe these tiny little eggs and cocoons she kept finding had some kind of connection to the small flying creatures that inhabited her world. This book recounts her work and discoveries and how she truly changed the science of the day with her art.

I read this book to my five-year-old and he loved it. The publisher says it’s recommended for children a bit older, but I found it captured his attention like any short picture book and he comprehended much of it. He was always so disappointed when I said we had to leave the next chapter for another day.

I adored this book and learned so much from it myself. It’s caused me to follow in the footsteps of Maria and get down on my hands and knees (and sometimes even on my stomach) to observe the world of insects for myself.

In Case You Missed It

How True Crime Can Create a False Reality. As a middle school girl, I enjoyed watching criminal dramas with my mom—especially Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. My father, however, believed such media ultimately created the kind of criminals they depicted. And while I didn’t become a criminal, I did grow up with a different sort of brokenness.

Christ’s Care As a Mother’s Love. In my infirmities and darkest suffering, I wondered if God sometimes pushed me aside because I had become too needy. Yet if we look at human love, particularly motherly love, we can see that that couldn’t be further from the truth.

An Interview with Lara d’Entremont, Homemaker and Author. As part of my OCD, I faced much turmoil and grief over my inability to keep up with my home like I used to before my first child. Again, I believed it reflected my character that I couldn’t keep the floor streak-free, the laundry up to date, or fend away dust bunnies. I had to come to see that motherhood is full of seasons, and in certain seasons our abilities will look different. It took years to come to terms with this and to stop relating my goodness with the cleanliness and order of my home. It wasn’t until my second healthy pregnancy that I got the help I truly needed for mental well-being.

The Lowly Servanthood of Motherhood. As moms, we can feel like our entire life is one of lowliness. We wipe bums and clean snotty noses. We hold hair back while children puke and scrub dried fruit from our floors. Meanwhile, our hair is greasy from day five of dry shampoo and we smell like old food and sweat. And we aren’t sure what that muddy, green stain on our pants is from. Pride tiptoes into our hearts as we scrub crayons off the walls. I’m better than this, we think as we tie up another bundle of dirty diapers. I was meant for more. We forget that becoming lowly is one of the many ways we are called to image our Savior.

Are You Trusting in Scripture or Yourself? When people don’t like what the Bible says, they sometimes brush it off as the work of fallible men or they look to their own experiences to find truth. Is our hope in Scripture or ourselves?

Epilogue

Thank you for reading! I’m ever grateful for your kindness and support. If you think someone else might be encouraged by this monthly newsletter, share it with them!