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Book Feature

I Realize I’ve Been Praying Wrong My Whole Life

By Sue Buchanan

Wayne and I began to pray for our babies before they were born. It felt rather silly at first, praying for a little blob that made my tummy stick out. Mostly we prayed that “it” would be healthy. And happy, of course! Perhaps Wayne prayed that “it” would be a boy; I’ve read that most men hope for a boy the first time around. But after about 30 seconds of holding Dana in his arms, he was silly in love and ready for a house full of girls.

Soon after each of our daughters was born, we were part of a sacred service in our church committing them to God. Kind of a promise to do our part to raise them in a spiritual environment and an acknowledgement that God had our permission to do His part. The congregation was then asked to raise hands promising to support us in our efforts and to pray for us.

When our girls began to walk, we prayed that they would be safe, that they wouldn’t ride their little tricycles into the street, that they wouldn’t fall from the top of the slide. And we prayed they would be happy.

I beseeched God often that He not let my persistent nightmare come true, the one in which the girls and I were stalled on a railroad crossing and a train was coming toward us full speed. As I prayed that prayer, I would rehearse my dream, how I dove over the seat, grabbed them, and frantically ran to safety, where we watched the car become an inferno. Sometimes I got the car started in the nick of time, and felt the car shudder from the draft of the train missing my rear bumper by inches. Either outcome caused me to wake up in a sweat.

My mother, not knowing about my dream, said to me one day, “The things you anticipate in life, the things you worry about, almost never happen. The things that do happen, you couldn’t have planned for.” That helped!

You know exactly what I prayed as the girls entered their teenage years! If you’re a mother, you’ve memorized the script. Don’t let her get killed in a car wreck. Don’t let her hang out with the wrong crowd. Don’t let her be attracted to the wrong boy. Don’t let her get pregnant. Help her be interested in her schoolwork. Don’t let her fail algebra. And puh-leeze, God, let her be happy.

When they were in college and afterward, I quit giving God specific orders: “Dear God, I have no earthly idea what’s going on with my daughter right now, but You do. It’s in Your hands.” Then just in case I couldn’t trust Him, I had to add, “Just don’t let anything happen to her. And for heaven’s sake, let her be happy.”

I never failed to pray the happy part. And I always pointed out to the girls what would make them happy, like hanging out with the right people, going to church, eating properly, getting enough rest—the list goes on. And if you talked to either of my daughters about this, they would say I added to the list the things that would make me happy: cleaning their rooms, helping with chores, pulling their hair out of their eyes, wearing the cutesy dresses I’d bought instead of jeans.

Not long ago, we—Dana and her husband Barry, our daughter Mindy, Wayne, and I—sat peacefully at the breakfast table long after the coffee had grown cold, each of us aware of the years when we rarely sat peacefully together. It suddenly occurred to me that we are happy. This despite the fact that Dana, who is 36, has just been diagnosed with breast cancer and Mindy is experiencing overwhelming discouragement as she tries to find her way back after years of bad decisions.

“While we are all together,” I said, “I want to tell you something important. All of your lives I’ve prayed that you would be happy. This past year I’ve stopped praying that.”

“Thanks a lot!” the girls responded in unison. We laughed.

“My prayer for you is that you’ll know God.”

It was quiet for a moment, and I thought I saw some puzzled looks. Since then, both of my precious girls have come to me to say thank you and assure me my prayer is being answered. Slowly but surely. And my guess would be not in the ways I could have planned or even dreamed.

From The Heart of a Mother (Bethany House, 2003). Originally from Confessions of Four Friends through Thick and Thin (Zondervan). Reprinted with permission from Zondervan.

SUE BUCHANAN speaks regularly to professional groups of men and women as well as to women's groups for a Ladies Night Out or retreat. She is able to blend her sense of humor with touching stories and truths so that her audience not only enjoys a good belly laugh, but maybe even sheds a tear or two. Hers is a message of hope, and survival, and of God's faithfulness, even when she feels her prayers aren't getting any higher than the ceiling fan.