Answer to Prayers?

There's a signpost up ahead.

A friend asked, "What was the most remarkable answer to a prayer you've prayed?" I was stumped. There are so many remarkable answers to prayers I've seen I can't really choose. God has answered long nagging prayers, formal prayers, walking prayers, thought prayers and one word cries for help. One of the most memorable ones happened when my wife and I were running an intergenerational day care center in Tyler, Texas.

We'd been working hard that autumn to get the budget under control and to handle some personnel issues we had going at the time. There were three individuals in particular who were giving us a hard time in particular. We'd gotten the budget under control, but in doing so we took a little of the authority away from the folks who had gotten us into trouble in the first place. I'd gotten a grant to cover my own salary so the center wouldn't be on the hook for that. We revised the accounting system with another grant that gave us a consulting CPA. We were on our way to having a healthy cash reserve in order to move the center from the church facility we were then occupying into a new facility we were planning to build or purchase. 

The church was unhappy with us. They were worried about a recent incident at another church center and feared we could be sued if something like that happened with us.  Secondly, they had been carrying the financial overages for the center and couldn't why the books looked good but the center was unable to contribute rent to the church. Finally, one of the staff, a church member was sowing discontent in the congregation because she'd not been given the executive director job and I had.

In the middle of all of this, Sheila and I decided one Saturday afternoon in April to drive out to Caddo Lake where our daughter and son-in-law and my son were camping with friends. On the way, we drove past the day care center and saw three cars in the parking lot. It was our three disgruntled employees.

We though, "Oh, oh, this can't be good." I dropped by and sure enough the two department heads and the bookkeeper where huddled in the office. When we came through the door you never saw a guiltier looking bunch. When I asked them what they were up to, they all looked guilty and made vague excuses for being there. Sheila and I left after a few minutes and headed off across country for the lake. 

As we drove, we talked about the problem. Staff loyalties were divided and trouble was a-comin' to be sure and we both knew it. After an hour of talking about possible solutions, we couldn't find one. Firing the bunch would alienate the church because one of them was a member. The staff, meanwhile not realizing what was going on, would find it arbitrary and there were 26 women working there and me the only male. Just so you know, the alpha dog thing doesn't work among groups of humans. When you have 26 female employees, you're just outnumbered and there's nothing you can do about it. 

So we took it to God. I drove and Sheila prayed because I'm better at the one and she's better at the other. In God's work you learn to stick to the talents he's given you.  After we prayed, we drove along quietly for a time. Finally, my wife turned and asked, "You got anything yet?"

I shrugged. " The only thing that comes to my mind is, 'Be still and know that I am God.'"

"That's funny," Sheila answered. "I had that same thought. I prayed all night about that and that's what I kept getting over and over all night long."

"It's going to be tough to do basically nothing," I shook my head.

We drove on along this tiny two-lane backwoods East Texas road for a few more minutes in silence, me thinking, this is one problem that's going to take some action. If I didn't get ahead of this little revolt, the whole thing could come apart. 

Then suddenly my eyes were drawn to a pretty little white country church along the road up ahead. It had one of those message board signs out front and I kept my eyes on it as the words became readable. In big black letters it said, "Be still and know that I am God."

I did a double-take. "Did you see that?" I asked incredulously. Sheila turned and looked hard at me, then quietly nodded.

"I think we've had as clear an answer as we're going to get," she laughed.

You're always a little quiet when God has spoken to you that clearly. We drove on to the lake and had a lovely day with the kids. On the way back, we thanked God for his answer. Monday, we went back to work and did what we should have done, just like any normal day. Our three revolutionaries didn't say much for the next few days until it became obvious that the wrath of Tom was not going to fall upon them.

Sheila and I remained still and let things work out. Within three months, the childcare director was offered a better paying job, the bookkeeper quit without warning and the titular adult director quit suddenly. I gave her two weeks severance pay.  All were replaced with very nice people who helped us a lot. The center lasted another year, but economic factors forced us to close. When we did, we were a happy group who hated to be going our separate ways. I still have friends from our time there.

As it turned out, God solved our problem for us. All we had to do was be still and know who was God and who was not!

 © 2016 by Tom King

Everybody's a Critic

One of the side effects of the Internet has unfortunately been the provision of a forum for the proverbial "experts who can't do anything." It is said that those who can do, those who can't teach and those who can't teach become critics.  I think I may have been the one who said that.

In any case, with the rise of the "comment" thread it seems everyone or at least most everyone, has taken it upon him or herself to lay into every book, movie, song, restaurant, sports team, or work of art, act of Congress or noble endeavor that goes on. Used to be it was a rare thing to find fault with something artistic much beyond, whether we liked it or didn't like it. Now, with the free and unfettered forum provided by the Internet, we all seem to need to get a lick in at everything in sight.

It's kind of sad because people that never actually make anything beautiful or pleasant or fun, have taken up positions in the digital duck blind and make themselves feel important by taking pot shots at anyone who dares to make the effort to actually do something or make something. We're fast becoming a nation of grouchy old critics - Waldorf and Statler sitting in life's bleachers making smug snide comments at everything.

It's sad really because taking on the job of critic makes you feel like you ought to say something critical about a thing if you review it. I've tried doing reviews on Amazon. I always feel a little guilty because I don't find a lot of fault. I do a lot of first novel reviews for fellow authors and they usually get five stars and an attaboy. I know how it feels to get 3 stars or to have people find fault with what you do and I can't seem to muster the courage to poke holes in what I know was somebody's labor of love. It seems a pretty rotten thing to do. I try to be honest, but I much prefer to focus on what I liked about something.

What brought all this on was I watched a Christmasy movie of Disney's. It was a kids movie and I found the animation and the songs and the story just amazing. Commenters at the space below the movie on the Internet, however, lined up to find fault with the movie. Some were understandably sick of hearing the "Let it Go" song, but the reason they were sick of it was because everybody was singing it and it gets stuck in your head because the song is so well done. Retroactively hammering the movie won't make your kids love the movie or the song any less and you're still going to have to listen to your little princess sing "Let it Go" over and over and over again.

When they went after "Tangled" which is one of my more recent Disney favorites, they done stepped over the line. It was a lovely movie with an upbeat ending. Some dim bulb went on and on about how disappointed she was that it wasn't "darker".  That's all we need in this world - to show our kids sad and depressive movies. The world is plenty dark without post-modernist cartoons putting our kids on Prozac. 

A critic the other day criticized the movie, "Hacksaw Ridge" for not inventing a scene where Desmond Doss had to choose to let someone die because he refused to pick up a gun. Even though the movie is closely based on a true story and that scene never happened this guy was certain it would have been a better "story" if they could have had such a scene. Another critic claimed some of the story was unbelievable even though Doss actually did kick a grenade away from fellow soldiers and was permanently disabled because of it. The critic wanted the actual story fixed to better suit his worldview in essence instead of allowing the story to be told as it was - reality not being good enough for Hollywood and all. It left certain questions unanswered for the critic. So when did life have to answer all your questions, man? Get used to it. Life does what it wants to you. You write your own story from life as it smacks you in the face. And it's never the story you thought it would be in the beginning of it.

I think those of us who are members of the Internet generation should spend a little more time in the real world. We should examine our values and our ethics and decide whether or not we believe the whole Golden Rule thing as a way of life. Despite how much I love Disney movies, I also blame Disney to some degree for our current generation that seems to think everything can be solved by magic. To some extent, Disney's magical fairy tales have contributed to that unrealistic view of life. But Disney is not alone in that responsibility. I really blame parents who don't take the time to talk about movies and TV shows that their kids see. If you raise a child by setting him in front of a TV set all day, you shouldn't be surprised if they develop a somewhat distorted outlook on life. You also have to take them out in the woods, go camping, hiking, take them fishing or canoeing or to visit museums, historical sites and do things together if you want a kid to view life realistically and not as some contrived story.

And perhaps instead of picking and fault-finding with the hard work of others, we should look for what we like about that work and not only encourage authors, artists, and craftsmen to give us more of what we enjoyed about their work, but we should also go out and do a little creating on our own. We are, after all, created in God's image. We are born creative. It is how we are like Him. I really believe God made us because He wanted to see what we would come up with. I think God wanted children who could make Him smile.

So maybe let's lighten up on being critics. It's more fun simply diving into the amazingly creative things God's children have made and simply enjoying it for what it is. It's what our Father would have us do.


© 2016 by Tom King
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