When I pray to God, I am usually asking for something. I have asked God to heal me from cancer, to find the right clinical trial for my father so that he could survive lung cancer, and I pray to God for my mom to someday know how beautiful she is. I pray to keep my kids safe, and I admit, in college, I prayed to win the lottery with the ticket I bought from 7-11. My Dad used to knock on the wood of his night stand five times. One for him, one for my mom, and three for us kids. I think he added one for my husband after my marriage and one more after my son was born. It is hard not to think of God as one who provides, not what we need, but what we want. And when He or She doesn't, boy, do we get pissed.

I talked with a friend recently who, as a result of a tragedy in his life, has had many doubts of God's existence. When things happen in our world that are difficult to accept, we doubt and we get pissed off at God. I can just see God, standing there time after time, while I throw my temper tantrums on my dance floor. And, as I throw my body and voice around the room, I sense a very deep love, present there with me. God does not walk away from me when I am pissed or when I doubt. She can take it. And, sometimes, I don't get what I want in my life. Today I asked my daughter, "What do you love most about being in the Finn family?" And she responded, "We have a kitty to play with." And then I said, "What don't you like about being in the Finn family?" And she answered, "I don't get what I want." I said to her, "I know honey. Sometimes, I don't get what I want either." It could be as simple as my husband bringing home chocolate chip ice cream, instead of my favorite mint chip. And, it could be as difficult as facing a life threatening illness. I am dealt cards that I don't want to play in my life. So, how do we feel safe in a world that is what it is, and is not what we want every moment?

Grace. Plain and simple. And what is grace? It is when God shows up. And often, it is in retrospect that I know this. How did I get up off my knees when I cried out for my Dad's relatively young life? How did I put the drinks down almost twenty years ago and not just live, but thrive? How do I live knowing intimately, that my life will not go on forever? How do I embrace my life when people I love are in pain, or living with chronic illness? How do my husband and I stay committed to each other through boredom, conflict and difficulty? How did I birth two beautiful children, almost ten pounds heavy with big heads, into this unpredictable world? Grace. I could not have done any of that by myself. It is not about knowing who or what God is. Who can answer that? What would we need faith for if we knew who God is? It is about experiencing the grace of God in each moment of our lives. With gratitude, life is a gift to be lived as it is. Not as I want it to be. I am grateful just to be on this planet, even when it sucks, and sometimes, life sucks in a very big way. I learn a lot about accepting life on life's terms from the Exodus story in the Bible. A people, who were enslaved and set free, then wandered in the desert for more than forty years, whined and complained to God, through God's middle man, Moses. They didn't like the food,  they got on each other's nerves, they wanted the Promised Land. And through all of this, God never left them. Through the thunderstorms, the manna, the water from the rock, the Israelites experienced God. It doesn't matter if small pieces of bread actually fell from the sky. These people experienced, and then tell the story, of God's presence in dire circumstances. This gives me hope.

We cannot make sense of what happens in life. We do a lot of labeling of events. Winning that hundred bucks was good, losing my Mom was bad. Having cancer: Bad. Being in remission: Good. This is risky business, and it is a very common way of looking at life in our culture. It doesn't work for me. Life is too unpredictable for that. And, God is not out to get us. God longs for us, no matter what happens. We are not left alone when things aren't going our way, or even worse, when we suffer tragedies. God is bigger than that.