Originally published at HorizonsResources.net
A few weeks ago, I sat on the couch with an acquaintance I have recently started calling friend. We were grouped together for a prayer exercise, one that turns my hands sweaty and elevates my heart rate. We each held a tiny notecard with our prayer requests for the week, a quiet sharing of burdens that makes me feel off-balance these days. She handed me her card, decorated with her beautiful loopy script, light bouncing off of her week-old engagement ring. Her requests felt light, exciting, joyful even. Wedding planning. House-shopping. Job-hunting. I fought back pinpricks of resentment.
My card was rougher, with choppy handwriting and requests that felt too heavy to place on someone else’s shoulders. I wanted to apologize as I handed it to her. This card was decorated with the words of grief and loss, the words of a person trying to sort through the back-to-back deaths of two people I love. We sat facing each other, our hands clasped and our heads bowed low. I prayed for her, for her upcoming wedding and marriage to a kind man, for the house that would become a home, for the new job filled with passion. We were mirrors of each other, her looking forward at all that was to come and me looking back at all that had happened, the wreckage of the past five months. Unbeknownst to either of us, I think, we prayed the same thing for each other - that we would know the Lord more deeply in this season.
