hanging up

Tonight during our Faith visit some of the conversation was devoted to prayer and the feeling that God is not listening.

I was feeling safely distant from that feeling during the visit, only to get home and be reminded of something that it seems like I have been bringing up in prayer for a long time to no avail. And a little frustration festered. (Even typing "to no avail," I realize that I have grown through the experience of pleading, regardless of outward circumstances.)

Then I had this mental picture of the long month when we were trying to get wireless internet to work in our house. Time after time I ended up on hold with a tech support person in India. Sometimes the person on the other line would surface, sometimes I'd be routed through what seemed like endless series of touch-tone numeric surveys, but more often I was just ON HOLD.

Occasionally being on hold became so frustrating that I'd just hang up. It was easier to hang up and do something else than to deal with the uncertainty of on hold-ness.

And every time you hang up, you wonder: was I the next one in the queue? If I had waited just 30 more seconds? Fifteen? Was the person on the other side of the line actually the one who could (1) speak English (2) hear me and (3) solve my problem?

???

The parallel between AOL Broadband tech support and prayer is, of course, not perfect.

The adventure with prayer is that (unlike my unwavering pursuit of wireless internet access, which was, incidentally, already bought and paid for) along the way I may come to find that what I have been praying for isn't in my Father's plan, but that by persevering in prayer I have grown closer to Him and more clearly able to see the way He is lighting toward His Better.

Not that the hanging up analogy doesn't give me things to think about . . .