Thinking On Thursday

Now that school starts on Monday, I can say, summer is over. I go back to being teacher Mom and having a schedule. All summer I have prayed for an answer to a prayer that God has said " No," to all summer. I had the thought many, many times why should I bother to pray anyway. This summer, God has answered lots of prayers but not in the way I wanted. Yesterday, I was having my devotions and wouldn't you know that every time I pick up something it is about prayer. Not giving up. I wanted to share it here today. It has given me comfort. I am taking it out of one of my favorite books by Elisabeth Elliot, " Keep a Quiet Heart."

In  this story she shared a letter she received from a gal named Brenda Foltz of Princeton, Minnesota.

" I started up the rock as fast as I could, determined to " set my face like a flint" toward the peak. After a time, I came to a difficult ledge, and my breathless scrambling came to and abrupt halt. Suddenly, the rope was pulled too taut and hit me square in the eye. "Oh NO!" I  thought wildly,  " My contact lens is GONE!"
From my precarious perch I looked everywhere on the rope and the sharp granite rock for a tiny, transparent lens, which could easily be mistaken for a water droplet.

" Lord Jesus, help me find it!" I prayed and pleaded, knowing the hopelessness of my search with such limited mobility. I looked as long as I could maintain my hold praying with a sinking heart. Finally I resumed my climb with one last glimmer of hope---maybe the contact was still in my eye, crumpled in the corner or up under my eyelid. When I reached the top. I had a friend check to see if she could find it in my eye. It wasn't there. Every hope was gone.

I was disappinted, and anxious about getting a new contact so far away from home. As we sat and rested, surveying the world from such a gloriously high perspective, the fragment of a verse popped into my head: "The eyes of God go to and fro through the whole earth."
God knows exactly where my contact is this moment from His high vantage point, the amazing thought struck me. But I'll never see it again, I concluded.

So, still glum, I headed down the path to the bottom where the others were preparing to climb, About  half and hour later another girl set out where I had also begun my climb. She had no inkling of the missing contact. But there, at the steep bottom of the rock face, she let out and excited cry. " Hey you guys---did anyone lose a contact!" I rushed over as she continued yelling, " There's an ANT carrying a contact down the mountain!"

Sure enough. Special delivery! I bent down, retrieved my contact from the hardworking ant, doused it with water and put it back in my eye, rejoicing. I was in awe, as if my Father had just given me, though so undeserving, big hug, and said, " My precious daughter, I care about every detail of your life."

After I finished reading this story, I put my book down and cried. I suppose I always think that I am the exception, that for some reason my prayers are not heard nor are they important enough for God to pay attention too. I thought about it all day, that girl in the story lost her contact, which an ant picked up and was bringing it down a moutain so I could read it and be encourged that yes, God has heard my prayers, but "chooses instead that sometimes He says no in order that He may, in some way we can not imagine, say yes.
All His ways with us are merciful. His meaning is always love."

I just thought I would share this today. It continues to be on my mind.

Have a great Thursday,

~ A much more peaceful Kim~

I am linking today with Doodlebug and her Faithful Fridays Post.
Sweet girl and a lovely post to go with it.