The Answer
I was alone. Usually Tamra and I both walked to church
together, but not this morning. We were
always together, but I guess Tamra must have been sick. I walked past Longhurst’s home. It used to be a basement home, but they had added
the top part. Then there was the scary
old lady’s house. It was half a house, a
basement house with black tar paper for a roof on it. It was a house not
grown-up yet, just a bit of it above the ground, with stairs down to the front
door. That house was waiting for the
upstairs to be built. The lady that
lived in that house was OLD, and the only time I saw her was on Halloween when
we trick or treated. She seemed really
grumpy, but she gave out delicious homemade cookies and apples. So, even though she was grouchy and a little
frightening to me, we trick or treated there anyway. You see, we were only allowed to trick or
treat to people we knew, only along our side of the block.
It must have been summer, I wasn’t
very old, but I can’t say exactly how old I was, maybe eight years old, possibly,
1959-ish. Terry, my little brother, was
still too young to walk with us to church.
In those days Mother sent us to Sunday School in the morning to walk the
three blocks to the seventeenth ward building by ourselves. She stayed home to make dinner. Sunday Dinner was our best meal of the
week. Mother often cooked a roast, I
didn’t like meat very much, but, it was still a special meal. I liked the care Mom put into it. She was great!
But today, I was walking by
myself. I was a deep thinker, even
though I was young. It was Mother I was
thinking about. How could she know He
was there? That morning I heard her
talking to someone. I wondered who could
be in her bedroom? Dad was already gone
to work, who was she talking to? I
paused in the doorway, Oh, what a feeling, thick and sweet and sacred, coming
out of Mom’s room. There, I saw Mother
on her knees, she was praying, but her praying wasn’t like mine. She prayed out loud. I couldn’t do that, my thoughts were so
private, I could not speak them, only, think-pray. I marveled that she could speak her thoughts
vocally, wish I could do that. And most
amazing of all, she spoke like He was right there. Just, how did she know that? How did she know that He could hear her?
I stopped walking and hung on the
silver bar-barrier-guard that lined the side walk over the canal that flowed
swiftly beneath me. The water was
rippling, dancing, moving so fast. It
looked clear, but brown, that was because the bottom had brown weeds and mud.
My thoughts flitted back to this
morning, to the feeling, to the picture in my mind of Mum kneeling,
praying. How can He know how to answer
prayers? How can he understand Me? He lived so long ago, it’s not like today. It’s so different now, we have cars, and
black and white TV’s, and toasters, and lots of electrical stuff. And for Pete’s sake, I’m a girl. I was very aware, even at that young age, of
the difference between boys and girls. Boys
certainly didn’t think the same as I did, that alone made me wonder how He
could actually understand how I felt. How
could He know exactly what my life was like?
….It came as a complete thought, a
paragraph answer, a surprising bolt of knowledge, complete and tidy, shot from
heaven right into my mind, while I stood on the sidewalk bridge, looking down
at the brown water rushing away. There
were No words, just a pure ray of warm, peaceful knowledge. I knew immediately that somehow, even though
we lived ages, even eons apart, that He experienced generically, things I had
experienced. Wow! He knew how I felt!,…
that was incredible! My heart-whispered,
think-prayers were heard and understood after all. Maybe someday,……. I could learn to trust Him and
pray like my Mum did.
This answer was foundational, much
like the basement house, waiting for the upper level to be built. This bit of knowledge given to a young girl
thinking and walking to church would be the beginning, the foundation, of a
deep faith in Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.
A faith that would take her through trials and pain, yet she would know
that HE IS THERE, waiting to help, waiting for her to come to Him and ask for guidance
and strength to travel through whatever circumstance she faced.
