Prayers and Wishes

In the past few days, I've had the overwhelming feeling that good things are just beginning, that the bright only gets brighter, and that the things I've always wanted are at my fingertips--all I have to do is stretch a little farther. For those of you who are not so optimistic, prepare for an overload of happiness.

I keep a hodge-podge journal. It has my poetry, thoughts, events that happen during my full days, class assignments, and mostly my prayers within it. I write some and type some. It may seem unorganized -- that's because it is. It's a thought bucket that I fling the sawdust of my mind's workshop into.

I was flipping through some older entries last week and began crying, not because the topics were sad or even exemplary. I just cried the happy tears that burn and drip into a smile because the words were pictures of how far God has brought me since I had written them. I read an old letter that I had written, and saw where God had recaptured my heart from someone who had stolen it. Then God mended it to better-than-new condition and taught me how to guard it without blocking out the entire world.

Reading in random sections, I found prayers from the depths of my soul. A quote grabbed my attention. Once, I had asked myself, "Is it so sacrilegious to wish for the same thing you are praying for?" I ask the Lord to make my desires the same as His, but there are some things that I want so badly that I can't help wishing outside of praying. It is promised that he "is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine," (Eph. 3:20) and believe me, I have a vivid imagination, so if He does more than my expectations, my excitement will nearly be too much to handle.

Now that I've had time to think and answer my own question about prayers and wishes, I believe that the wishing part is just a form of hope. "And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us" (Romans 5:5).

Hoping, wishing, and praying have not been in vain. Of course there are things that I ask for as an erring human and later praise the Lord that He DIDN"T do what I asked. But when the things I pray for and the things God wants in my life line up the answers are so close that I can smell them. I smell them now, and my faith in the Father is growing from that little mustard seed that it used to be.