I Prayed For Peace Instead

I think if you've been reading for a while, you'll probably pick up on the fact that little things inspire me. They might inspire hope, they might inspire sadness (but a reflective sadness), or they might inspire me to plot elaborate revenge schemes (as I presently contemplate copyrighting gluing someone's car doors shut!). I'm also a very spiritual person, and I feel like in times of need, God leaves little hints (aka inspirations) for me with whatever guidance I require most at that moment. I never worry about missing them, because I know if its important it will stand out.

One of those hints showed up for me about two years ago—in a Steve Carell movie of all places. Have you seen “Evan Almighty”? It was a cute movie; not mind blowing but entertaining. Definitely did not rise to “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy” status. However there was one tiny blip of dialogue that stuck out.

It was a scene between God (Morgan Freeman) and Evan’s wife (Joan Baxter, whose last name is the same as Will Ferrell’s dog in Anchorman. Coincidence? I think not!). Evan’s wife is talking about how she prayed for their family to be emotionally closer to each other. God (in disguise as a waiter or something) responded:

“Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?”

Right there in the movie theater I burst out crying. It was another piece in the bread crumb trail that God has left for me on my journey. Poor Adam—he looked over at me like I’d lost my mind. He’s used to me getting teary-eyed in the emotional scene of a movie, but this was full-on, snot-filled blubbering. Plus, he was probably hoping that people in the theater didn’t think we were together even though he was morally obligated to but his comforting arm around my shoulder.

It’s a little complicated to apply this statement to trying to get pregnant. If I prayed for God to bring me a baby, then Morgan Freeman would say that he was giving us an opportunity to have a baby. Which more or less sounds like God is encouraging us to have more sex. But at that point, I had stopped praying to get pregnant.

Don’t get me wrong, I still wanted a kid more than anything. But I had stopped asking God to make that happen. I was so miserable at that point that I just wanted the pain to stop. I wanted to stop resenting friends, and crying at the flippin’ Johnson & Johnson commercials (“Having a baby changes everything”… F-you J&J, NOT having a baby changes everything too!). I knew my frail little heart could not take much more without forever changing who I am, and who I would forever be—some sad shell of a woman with cob-webs for a uterus.

By this time, I prayed to God to grant me stillness; to help me find some serenity in this crap-storm of biological chaos. I prayed to God to help me find acceptance… to give myself over to some unseen master plan. I prayed to God to grant me harmony and bring balance back to my life.

I prayed for peace.

This mundane little quote made realize that God had already given me all the tools that I needed. He was giving me an opportunity to create my own peace, to find my own balance. He couldn’t grant me anything. If peace had just shown up on my doorstep, wrapped up like the frickin’ stork had dropped it off, it would never have any real meaning in my life because I wouldn’t have had to work to get it.

For the next year, I worked hard at achieving my peace. I’d love to say it was a simple little mindset change, but it took a lot of correction in my previous self-punishing, self-pitying habits. However, I think you’ll find than anyone who has made meaningful, life-long change just started with one small thing at a time. I had a college professor who, while quite out of shape, decided he wanted to be a marathon runner. So, the next day he got all dressed up in full jogging gear, announced to his wife that we was going for a run, and took off out his door.

He ran about a block, and then turned around and came back home. And that’s out it started for him. Every day he added a little more distance, and within a year he ran his first marathon. It was the same for me, every day I tried to find a little more peace. I actively searched out things that would give me tools to obtain the peace I was seeking. I read quotes of wise people, and thought about ways I could apply that to my life. I thought about how I could help others find their peace. I consciously willed my heart to heal, about a block at a time.

I still get caught praying for silly little things… for my hormones to get it together already, for my husband to “send forth” a particularly enterprising sperm. And to win the lottery, and for the credit card companies to magically lose my accounts, and for Spencer and Heidi to get placed in a remote jungle and have their horror played for me to see (at least God heard that one, thanks bro!). But I always come back to that one place, and I try to pray for peace instead.