Today has been fairly busy. This morning I had a meeting with several other local pastors to plan for our community prayer event coming up at the end of this month. Then I had to compile all the components for a gift basket for a local elementary school auction (I went with a Starbucks theme) and, of course, had to assemble said basket. I also engaged in a rather lengthy conversation with another pastor friend of mine regarding the beauty of unity in the body, spurious politics and the current climate in conservative churches, and the gift of healing among other things. It was a great exchange.
Anyway back to my schedule, I just finished putting the last touches on my gift basket (feeling pretty good about it – I mean who doesn’t love Starbucks?) when Audrey got out of school and I had to rush her to a dress fitting half an hour away to have her prom dress shortened because Audrey is only about 5′ 2″.
I drove her because the seamstress we were meeting with is a very dear friend of 25 years that I rarely get to see. Unfortunately, I’d agreed to pick up one of my granddaughters from school today, so our visit was cut short. We crammed 2 years of conversation into 15 minutes as she pinned the dress and walked us out. She’s even busier than I am, so who knows when we will see each other again. I’ll be out of town when the alteration is done and Audrey will have to pick it up without me.
Audrey is absolutely stunning and the dress she is wearing to prom accentuates how amazingly beautiful she is. We found it when we went to San Francisco for a school function. She’s chosen not to go with a boy (big sigh of relief) but is going with her best friend, Danielle, instead. They’ve been best friends since third grade and they wanted to create these memories together. Her friend found her dress while with us on the same trip. So much fun to see them choosing what to wear together. Danielle is even shorter than Audrey so her dress needs alteration too but her mom is more proficient than I am in that area so there are no emergency trips to the seamstress for them. Nice.
With all this prom talk, Audrey asked me what kind of dress I wore to my prom. “I never went to prom,” I responded.
Why Not?
“Why not?” she asked.
So I explained that when I was in high school, my mom was a single mom who worked as a waitress to support me and my siblings. Money was super tight. The P.C. term would be underprivileged but back then we would just say we were poor. So even though I was asked to go (I was, after all, smokin’ hot), I declined because I knew my mom couldn’t afford to buy me a dress. There were no programs for girls without dresses back then.
“Did you ever even ask your mom?” she asked.
“No, I didn’t want to make her feel bad about it,” I told her.
In retrospect, I think I made the right decision. My mom would have moved heaven and earth to get me a dress but I didn’t want to add to the stress she lived with daily.
No Limits
Now, however, it occurs to me that I may have carried that self-denial forward into my relationship with my heavenly Father. Have I held back from dreaming, believing some things aren’t for me? Have I bought into the lie that the good things, the fun things are for others but not for me? Do I still have that poor kid’s mentality about what is available to me? Intellectually, I know God’s resources are unlimited. Intellectually, I know He wants to bless me with every good thing. However, I suspect there may be a little of that “Proms are for other girls not for me” mentality still lurking deep in the recesses of my young girl heart. A mentality that needs to be brought out and exposed to his overwhelming love and goodness. Where He has placed no limits on me, I may be limiting myself.
I think I will spend some time with my Papa asking Him for everything I have ever wanted. My days of protecting my provider have passed.
“. . . You do not have, because you do not ask God. ” James 4:2b (NIV)
Today I am praying for homeless families to find shelter and to receive the kind of help that will empower them – not enable them.
What are you praying for? Please leave a comment and let me know what you think.