Dear God

Hi, God,

It’s me again. I know it’s been a while since my last prayer, so I don’t blame you if you choose not to listen to a hopeless fool like me.

The truth is, I’m just not a great guy. I wish I had a better excuse than this, but I don’t. And if I offered you a better excuse, you’d know I was lying.

I’m slothful. I have bad habits. Sometimes I don’t do the right thing. And oftentimes, I forget to pray.

The reason for this is because I grew up in a Baptist fundamentalist household. My mother forced me to pray each night at gunpoint. We uttered morbid prayers that struck terror into the hearts of children.

I grew up with clinically diagnosed Rapture Anxiety. I was terrified that if I wasn’t taken in the Rapture, I’d be left here on earth to suffer with all the Methodists.

And then there was the prayer Granny made me memorize. “Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep.” There has never been a more sadistic prayer.

“Now I lay me down to sleep,

“I pray the Lord my soul to keep;

“If I should die before I wake,

“I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

Die before I wake? Who came up with that? And they wondered why I peed the bed.

My wife. Now there’s a praying person. She keeps a handwritten list. Every night before supper, my wife prays for each person she’s ever met since third grade. From the Vietnamese exchange student she met in preschool, to former professional wrestlers.

I have a difficult time staying alert during such suppertime prayers. My head sinks lower with each word, until eventually my forehead is on the table and our food has developed a thin layer of frost on the surface

But me? I’m just not devout. I know, I know. I should beat myself up about this. But I’m tired of beating myself up.

I’ve been beating myself up for years because I’ve never been what everyone else thinks I should be. I’m a disappointment to a lot of people.

I’m unsuccessful in so many areas of life. I’m not fishing for sympathy. I’m only saying.

I’m an academic shipwreck. I am lazy. If I had a third hand, I’d need a third pocket to put it in. I am unfocused. Disorganized. Dyslexic. A dropout. I do not make my bed, sometimes for days on end, until my wife threatens to marry the plumber.

So again, I don’t blame you if you don’t listen to my beseechment. You have every right.

But.

If you were inclined to receive an imploration from a fool like me, here is my request:

Please help the children I recently saw on Facebook. This happened after I had just settled down to begin writing.

There I was. I had intended to write something completely different. I started tapping away on my keyboard when I saw these sweet kids on my computer screen.

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia. Nuroblastoma. Lymphoma. Retinoblastoma. Soft tissue Sarcoma. These kids have undergone procedure after procedure. Invasive treatments. Brain surgery. Skin grafts. Spinal chemo. You name it.

I started crying when I watched a video of a young girl relearning how to walk in the corridors of the hospital. I wept when I read about how these families have fought.

I know you’re up there, God. I know you’re listening. And even though this prayer is coming from the lips of a failed human, help these kids.

Do your thing, Lord. Throw your weight around. Prove to everyone what you’re capable of. Don’t do it because I asked. Do it because in an age of discontent, disaster, and profound distrust, fools like me need something to believe in.

Very truly yours,

—A hopeless fool