Unanswered Prayer

Keep Praying — He May Get Around To You

God may not always answer your prayer for He might be busy elsewhere

I heard this story as a kid; I believe it was my dad who told it to me one day during a visit to his mom (Grandma Irene, who we visited every summer) who lived in a two-story red house by a lake — and this lake, Grandma’s lake, always comes to mind when I think of the story.

This is how the story goes.

An old lady lived by a lake. The lake was long east to west — stretching from one end of the county all the way to the other, the western tip even made it across an imprecise county-line into the neighboring county which, by this tiny bit of lake alone, also lay claim to ownership of the lake, the whole lake mind you, something which was often, and thoroughly, and loudly disputed by Grandma’s county, but I’m slipping off the point here — yes, it was a long lake but not nearly as wide north to south, so it was a sort of snake-like lake (say that fast twenty times). Her sturdy little house lay on the northern shore.

As a child and a young woman (yes, she was born and grew up in this house) rowing across the lake to the southern shore, where several of her friends lived and where the village church had stood for a hundred or so years, was as nothing to her, but with age, south grew farther and farther away from north as the lake grew wider and wider and these days this strange dimensional behavior had limited her lake-crossings to Sundays, to attend the eleven o’clock Sunday service.

This particular Sunday morning, she set out as usual, giving herself a baker’s hour to cross the lake. Walking toward the little wooden wharf where the boat lay waiting, straining at the ropes, she noticed that the wind was up and that it came out of the south, racing toward her across the choppy, now unfriendly water: it would be a hard row, she told herself, but she was quite certain she would make it to the church on time. She was not dead yet.

Well out on open water, she was reconsidering, for the wind was heavy and wet and seemed to relish keeping her working harder at the oars than she had for years, and it seemed resolved on making sure that she would not make it across in time. She was even considering turning back, but she had not missed a Sunday service for going on twelve years now (broken arm, that summer), and she was nearly mid-lake by now, so she spit into her hands and took a few deep breaths and rowed on (put her back into it, as the saying goes).

And rowed on, and rowed on, now praying to (entreating) the Lord above, please, please, dear Lord, turn your strong and mighty wind around that it may help me reach your house in time. Please, please.

But the Lord was either busy elsewhere, or was growing hard of hearing for the southern wind continued to howl at her back and continued to do its best to keep her away from the shore behind her and the church. Still, she would not give up for she had now made it three-quarters of the way, and while still praying that the Lord would turn the wind around, she huffed and puffed and pulled and pulled and did in fact make landfall, though now (in her Sunday bests) soaking of sweat. Be that as it may, she thought, the Lord won’t mind a little sweat as long as I make it to His house on time.

Which, bless her (almost running the last bit) she did.

And she enjoyed the service, and she said goodbye to the pastor and to her friends and she walked down to the slightly-larger-than-hers wooden wharf to untie her boat for the row home, to now discover that the Lord had finally seen fit to answer her prayer.

© Wolfstuff