First Tuesday with God

“Lord, how are you?  What is making you glad?  What is making you sad?”

I had never thought to ask God such questions before.  And it made no sense that I was asking him at that moment.  You see, I had a desperate prayer on my heart — the life of my child was at great risk.  And yet, when I began to write in my prayer journal early that morning, these three questions popped into my mind and heart and flowed onto the page.  “Lord, how are you?  What is making you glad?  What is making you sad?”

It was a Tuesday.

Outside my window, the woodsy New England landscape was just beginning to awaken to a beautiful yet soon-to-be-tragic September 11 morning.  About 20 miles to the north, at Logan airport, a nefarious plot was being carried out by some of God’s created ones who had gone far astray.  That must have made God sad.  And their actions would soon rob dearly loved ones from so many children and spouses, parents and friends.  More sadness on God’s heart.

Meanwhile, some of the people on those airplanes and in those buildings, those who had chosen to be followers of God, would soon be coming to be with God in person.  That must have made him glad.  He had chosen this time for them to come home, and it would be a sweet welcoming, somehow free of tears or pain.

Sadly, others who had chosen to turn away from God would soon be irreparably separated from him.  I still struggle to understand how this all works and how God weaves together his loving patience and his righteous judgment toward us as we too often reject and spurn him.  But God knits these seeming opposites together so seamlessly.  He was writing the story of 9/11 with the same compassionate heart as he writes the stories of every other day.  Tragedies and triumphs and everything in between, all somehow threaded together in a beautiful tapestry of the story of his great love and his true justice. 

God no doubt had much on his mind and heart early that morning as I sat with him.  Somehow, he caused me to take a break from my own lament and anguished prayers — which he cared very deeply about — and momentarily invited me into his realm for a brief breakthrough moment where I, for the first time ever, stopped and asked him,

“Lord, how are you?  What is making you glad?  What is making you sad?”

I had no idea what would soon unfold.  Insights into what was on his heart would awaken later, during subsequent times spent with him.  And later I would also look back and see that this conversation was a significant turning point in our relationship.  Where all my previous prayer “conversations” with God had been rather self-focused, un-listening monologues, in one moment that suddenly pivoted.

“Lord, how are you?”

A few hours later, our nervously anticipated 8:00am ultrasound appointment finally arrived.  Would our baby live? How could she not live?  She was an answer to years of prayer.  Such a clear answer.  You see, early one morning about five weeks earlier, while I was spending some time with God reading my Bible and praying, I was once again asking him to bless my wife and I with another child.  Our eight-year-old son had been a wonderful answer to prayer after some prior years of being unable to conceive.  And here my wife and I were again, trying to no avail, and pouring our hearts out to God asking him to help us have more children — the bigger family we longed for.

I was literally in the middle of praying about this exact thing when Grace came downstairs uncharacteristically early and interrupted my prayer time to tell me that she had just taken a pregnancy test … and it was positive!  What a clear answer to prayer!

But a few weeks later we began to see signs that this pregnancy was not going right.  The signs continued, and we both worried and prayed.  Finally, we made an appointment to be seen by a doctor, and an ultrasound was scheduled for 8:00am on September 11, 2001.

When that hour finally arrived, after much anguish and prayer, the ultrasound brought ominous news — heart rate too low, survival unlikely.

Grace and I were numb as we walked from the examination room out into the waiting room, where our numbness walked headlong into shocking images on the TV showing the first World Trade Center tower ablaze.  Our quiet personal tragedy was suddenly swirled into the giant vortex of the 9/11 tragedy, and we would never be the same. 

And yet, for me, this would also be a huge pivot point in my relationship with God, largely because he had just taught me a few hours earlier to see that our relationship could involve two-way communication.  God has emotions, and I am made in his image, and so we have much to talk about.  He and I can share in one another’s sadness and in one another’s gladness.  And indeed, we do.

In my heart, our child was a girl, and I call her Rachel.  This is to honor Rachel Povitzsky, my Jewish grandmother who I understand lived through a horribly tragic persecution wherein she witnessed her parents being killed in an ethnic purging.  She went on to somehow escape to America, but once here she continued to face hardships and inescapable fears.  Ultimately, she lost a battle with breast cancer and died in her 30’s.  Despite her tragic path, Rachel also left a wonderful legacy behind that I experienced in the loving kindness and strong tenacity of her youngest daughter, my mother Miriam. 

Though I never met my grandmother Rachel or her namesake, my daughter Rachel, I feel inexplicably close to them both.  I think this is in part because I know that my growing intimacy with God is a beautiful part of their combined legacy, which to this day often prompts me to ask of the God who loves me,

“Lord, how are you?  What is making you sad?  What is making you glad?”

[scroll down for some questions to ponder and a few more reflections from the author]