How are you?” Elisa asked as we walked out of a meeting. I looked at her, and her gaze was sincere. She wanted to know, and I couldn’t blow her off, lie, and pretend like life was easy-breezy.
“I’m letting fear have too much control,” I answered. It had been months since Becca’s accident, and although life was returning to normal by all outward appearances, I knew the details of my decisions were centered in fear. I would call Lindsay from work and ask, “How is everything?” afraid Gabi had pulled boiling water on herself or Genevieve had been run over in the driveway. Every thought went to the worst-possible scenario. I figured if I imagined the worst, especially around my children’s safety, I would somehow be more prepared for it.
“Let me pray for you,” Elisa said as she followed me to my cubicle. I was grateful for a workplace where prayer was a natural response from a co-worker.
I sat in my office chair, and she put her hand on my shoulder. I don’t remember her exact words, but I remember the peace that followed. The rest of that day and then into the next and even the next, I felt a sense of God’s presence with me and with my children. Even if I wasn’t with them, I knew God was.
The mystery of prayer together. It’s sometimes easier, safer, to pray alone in silence. Saying the words out loud commits you to your desires. And articulating them in front of another person is even more vulnerable. What if God doesn’t answer them? What does that say about what I want? That it’s selfish? Out of God’s plan? And yet to have another soul approach God for his mercy on my behalf, as Elisa did in my cubicle, I start to believe it might be possible. Possible that God sees us. Hears us. Knows us. That despite the billions of people he needs to attend to, we each uniquely matter. My brain can’t make sense of it, and yet my soul feels it.
I knew it with my girls too. We’d been waiting for days for the tooth to come out. It was hanging and could be twisted in almost any direction, but it was still attached to Gabi’s upper gum. The minivan was parked near the front steps of the house, and despite my pregnant belly, I unloaded the grocery bags into the house two at a time. Gabi and Genevieve were wild with energy. It was summer, and they couldn’t help themselves—they flung the flip-flops from their feet and ran across the cool lawn from the driveway. Back and forth across the grass, a little bit of country in the middle of their city. Genevieve, who is happiest when her major muscles are moving, threw her head back and laughed as she ran. Her bony legs moved her at rapid speed despite the hot air that surrounded her.
Then the collision. One sister’s body parts hit the other’s. A whack. A scream. Gabi’s hand went up to her mouth. She pulled her hand from her lips and saw blood dripping from her fingers. She quickly looked at me. To see what? That I was close by? That she would be okay? That I saw she was bleeding? Some affirmation of her affliction and some confirmation that she would survive this? She put her hand back up to her mouth.
The tooth—gone.
“My tooth!” Her eyes darted to the grass, searching with desperation. How would she ever find her grain-of-rice-sized tooth amid the jungle of our lawn that, like always, needed to be mowed?
The amount of blood was starting to concern me a little. “Come inside, let’s wash you off, and we’ll come back out and look for the tooth,” I said.
She was now wailing. I couldn’t understand what the big deal was, then remembered someone once telling me that during potty training, children can get scared when they poop because they feel like they are actually losing a piece of their body. Maybe the same was true of a tooth for a six-year-old. I tried to be sympathetic.
Gabi turned on the bathroom sink faucet, put her hands under the cool water, and splashed it on her face. As she scrubbed her mouth and chin, her breathing slowed and her sobs turned to whimpers. Little sister Genevieve, who had followed us into the house, stood in the bathroom doorway, not sure if she was welcome to step in.
“We can go back out and look for it. Just get cleaned up.” I tried to make my voice sound reassuring, patient, even though I was anxious to get the rest of the groceries out of the hot car.
“I’ll help look!” Genevieve’s voice sounded hopeful that her sister was ready to forgive.
Gabi lowered the towel from her face and gave her sister a look that said forgiveness wasn’t available yet. She turned to me. “Will you pray for my tooth?”
I could feel the pride filling my chest. I really must be a good mom, if this was my child’s response to her stress. I gave her my best reassuring smile.
“Yes, of course I will.” I sat down on the cool bathroom floor, the weight of my pregnant belly pleading me to sit whenever possible. Genevieve still stood in the doorway, watching, absorbing.
My pride shifted to panic. Oh no! They really think this is going to work. They think asking God for something will get them what they want. They are believing what I’ve told them! Do I believe what I’ve told them?! I felt I needed to warn them that prayer doesn’t always equal desired end results.
Was I really ready to pass on my faith to these girls? Did I believe God enough, trust him enough, to lead my precious babies to him with their heartache, knowing he may not answer their prayers the way they hoped? Did I really believe he heard?
I prayed silently: God, I’m trusting you on this one. And then out loud: “Jesus, you know where Gabi’s tooth is, and you know how important it is to her that she finds it. We know you want us to ask you, to come to you, with the things that are important to us. Please help us find her tooth.” I couldn’t believe I was praying for a tooth with such sincerity. I couldn’t have cared less about the tooth, but I cared about what this prayer represented to them. To me.
I pushed myself up and walked back out to the front lawn with my expectant girls. They circled the spot we’d left only minutes earlier. Back and forth, much slower now, they walked across the lawn, their bodies bent toward the grass their eyes were dissecting.
“I found it!” Genevieve bent down to the grass and snapped her body back up, her hand above her head like an Olympic champion, holding the lost tooth for us all to see. Confident her big sister would have to forgive her now.
Thank you, Lord, I prayed. I watched Gabi run to her sister, who cradled the precious tooth in her hand. I knew their prayers wouldn’t always be answered the way they wanted. My doubts about God hearing and answering made me hesitant to pass on this faith that often felt like it could slip through my fingers. And yet I still believed more than I didn’t. In fact, I believed more than ever. I had to trust with them that God heard our every utter. Theirs and mine.