Tired...

So, last night I was getting ready for bed at 12:45 or so when my phone rang. It was one of my friends. She was having a really bad allergic reaction to something and needed me to go to the hospital with her. So, I got dressed and when she got there I took her to the hospital. They put her in a bed and gave her a shot and some meds and we stayed there for about 5 hours. We finally left at about 5:45am. Every once in a while she would look over and apologize to me. Although I was tired, I was glad to be there. It made me feel like a good friend to be able to take her and be there with her.

A lot of times, I feel like a bad friend because I don't often know what the right thing is to do. But that made me feel good. I had a conversation with one of my friends recently about this. I always feel like I don't have any good advice to offer and I can't ever think of any way to help them aside from praying for them. And, I know that is a help, but I want to be able to DO something for them to help them out of whatever it may be that they are going through. It hurts me to see my friends hurt. I wish that I could take their hurt upon myself instead of having them go through it. But I can't and so I want to do whatever else I can, but I'm don't know what advice to offer and I don't really know what to DO for them so I'm stumped. So, I pray for them, but it doesn't feel like much.

But then, I guess saying that minimizes the power of prayer and the power of God. Saying that makes it seem as if God can't help that person as a result of my petition. I also need to work on my prayer life. I often find myself praying half heartedly. Not as in, I don't want to spend that time praying, but as in, I don't really believe that God will actually answer my prayers. More than that, I don't even really think about whether God will answer them. I sort of throw my requests out into a void and hope that they get to God and maybe He'll look at them before too long. But that's not how we're supposed to pray. We're supposed to pray with hope, thanksgiving, and faith. So, recently my main prayer has been, "Lord, I do believe! Help my unbelief!"

On a completely unrelated note, I wonder what that father would think to know that he has been quoted for thousands of years... That would be weird. On the one hand, it would be kind of unpleasant to know that many people for thousands of years have known of your lack of faith, but at the same time it would be nice to know that there are other people all through time that struggle with the same thing. And...thinking along that line is encouraging for me. He struggled with the same thing that I do. He struggled to believe Jesus' words the same way I struggle to believe that God is listening and wants to help.

But, if I want to help my friends this much, how much more must God want to help us? That is an encouraging thought. For some reason, I don't have a hard time picturing Jesus wanting to help us, but at the same time I have a hard time believing that God wants to help us. It's a good thing that they are the same person. I guess it comes from years of hearing that God was like a father. So, I see him as distant and pretending to care when others are looking, but not really caring. And, I know in my head that this image is wrong, but from so many years of hearing that, my heart still has trouble seeing God as an involved, close, loving and caring Daddy. But I guess a lot of people have that problem. That's a consequence of living in a world of broken relationships.

So, this has been another ride on the Esther-Stream-of-Consciousness. We hope you enjoyed your ride. Come again...