Ripples

Blah Blah .... I think of all these things during the day - and sometimes at night - then when I come to write something for the blog, I realize I can't say what I want to say without divulging situations that involve other people. People who might get quite annoyed with me if they became aware of the fact that they were my topic of the day or even on my mind.

I guess that's why Jesus spoke in parables? No - He probably didn't care if someone knew he was using them as an object lesson. He would have been in their face anyway saying, "Do you realize what you're putting other people through?" "Do you see how your choices move like ripples on a pond and affect people who may not even KNOW you!" "Do you see what a dumb ass you are being?" ... Well, Jesus may not have said that anyway -- unless he was actually talking to a stubborn donkey.

There are people I pray for who don't even know they are on my heart. It feels sort of like being an anonymous donor ... you kind of want them to know you're doing something for their good ... but not really.

Most of the people for whom I pray are young adults. Maybe that's because I have two of those in my own home and I see the angst they deal with, and I hear (I'm sure a small percentage) what some of their friends live with and worry about. It bothers me that for many of these situations I don't really even know what to pray. The most common, when I can actually verbalize something are "change hearts", "open eyes", "open doors" .... Of course, in the lives of my own children, or people close to them, I want to jump in and fix it for them -- help them bypass some of the torment and unnecessary (in my mind) bumps in their road of life. In my 'mature' mind, I would have been grateful and happy for someone to have intervened ... helped me through the ups and downs, the sadness, the valleys, the hurts .... In my realistic mind I know that I would have rejected any assistance, information or direction that disrupted my own handling of growing-up problems. I DID reject these things. Sometimes blatantly.

I have come to understand that there were (and most likely are) "anonymous donors" in my life. They were (are) wise enough to know that personal interference into the things that cause me anxiety would be rebuffed and considered invasion. I can't ever thank these people for their prayers, but I can pass forward their generous donations of intercession on my behalf. God knows who they are -- the ones who prayed for me, and the ones I cry for now.