BIBLE TIMES TABLE TALK: OF SPARROWS and STUFFED ANIMALS

REGRETTED praying the prayer the moment I prayed it; but it seemed to jump out of my mouth. After tucking in my eight-year-old son Andy, I said a goodnight prayer at his bedside. He had been disconsolate for a week over the loss of his little stuffed animal a gray wolf he named "Wolfie." His grief would escalate at bedtime since Wolfie was his sleeping companion. Seeing his furrowed little brow and moist eyes every night broke my heart.

I had prayed for God to comfort him, and I had prayed that we would find Wolfie; but tonight my spontaneous, non-premeditated bedside prayer was, "Father, please show us where Wolfie is so that Andy will know ow much you love him," My first thought after the "Amen" was What if I just wrote a check God won’t sign? I resisted the urge to throw in a caveat and add to the prayer, "But if we don’t find Wolfie, help Andy to know you still love him anyway."

I got up from my knees and walked out Andy’s bedroom door. At that moment a pictured popped into my mind: It was Wolfie in a sleeping bag in a box in our attic. Andy had been invited to a sleepover at a friend’s house last week; it was possible that Andy left Wolfie in his sleeping bag. I climbed up into the attic and crawled through the dust to the box with the sleeping bags. I pulled one out, opened it, and there was Wolfie! I scrambled out of the attic and ran to Andy’s room with the proof of God’s love in my hand. Though he didn’t appear to be in the mood for theological reflection on the event, Andy was very grateful and held Wolfie to his chest as we thanked God for his goodness.

Actually, had I engaged in a little theological reflection before my prayer, I probably wouldn’t have dismissed it as trivial and narcissistic. I would have wanted to hedge my bets and not put God on trial, lest the Almighty come up short in Andy’s eyes. But having prayed the prayer, quite by accident – no, not by accident – I have engaged in theological reflection of this sort: If the Father notices sparrows and counts hairs, he knows where the "Wolfies" of our lives can be found. If God became a human to show us his face, he certainly must care about a child’s face creased with sadness. Nothing is too hard, too big, or too small for his love.

~Ben Patterson~

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