Are You There, God?

(This post appeared in the Fall, 2020, collection of Live, the adult take-home paper of the Assemblies of God.)

Easing my dad from his walker into a dining chair, I carefully set a sandwich, fruit, and milk where his frail hands could reach them. He bowed his head and thanked God for the food, closing his prayer with “May we ever be mindful, Lord, of your presence with us.” 

 My mind went back nearly five decades to a simple country home. Every evening, my dad called me, my stepmom, and my sister together at bedtime. He read from the big family Bible, and then we knelt on the chilly linoleum-covered floor. As the fire died in the wood stove, Dad thanked God for our home and his job, prayed for sick friends, and asked for safety through the night and guidance the next day. He always closed the prayer with, “May we ever be mindful, Lord, of your presence with us.” 

 As a child, I never thought much about that prayer, except to hope Dad was right about God being with us when Kansas tornadoes headed our way. Over the years, though, he continued to pray it: He prayed it over Thanksgiving dinner, he prayed it as my family got into our van to leave after a visit, he prayed it over his simple sandwich or bowl of cereal. Dad apparently valued the assurance in Zephaniah 3:17, "The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing."

Sometimes Dad surely felt God’s presence rejoicing over him—when he earned his minister’s license and led a successful county jail ministry, when he received an award at work, or when he held a grandchild for the first time. I’ve had those times also—graduating college with honors, marrying a Christian husband, doing worthwhile volunteer work, seeing three healthy children become kind and talented adults. 

Other times, though, I’ve needed to be quieted by God’s loving presence. My soul was in turmoil as I rolled down the hospital hallway for cancer surgery, not sure what the outcome would be. I considered myself a failure as a parent when one of our children made some bad choices. I panicked when my husband lost a good job. It has taken intentionality to cry out to God, asking him to quiet my spirit even as I wondered, impatiently or just in the limitations of my humanity, whether he was really there or really cared. 

Watching my dad, now 94, repeat the prayer that he has prayed for as long as I can remember, I had to wonder whether he felt God’s quieting presence as an eighteen-year-old Marine in a rifleman’s nest in the South Pacific during World War II. Has God’s presence been what sustained him when my mother, and later, my stepmother, died from cancer? When my sister died suddenly from an aneurysm? During his own 40-year struggle with dystonia? Even now, too weak to do much more than slowly transfer himself from his wheelchair to his bed, mindfulness of God’s presence seems to quiet his soul. 

My dad’s prayer, which he still prays, helps me remember that God is always present, to celebrate or to comfort. Jesus’ parting words to his disciples in Matthew 28:20 were, “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Our Savior certainly knew what would happen to these loyal followers—most would give their lives for their faith. But they would also plant seeds that would carry the gospel to the ends of the earth, causing God to rejoice over them. In every situation, he would be with them. 

No matter what happened yesterday or happens today, good or bad, Lord, I need your reassurance that you are there. Help me be mindful of Your presence. 

Dad in his room, where he still spends time reading his Bible and praying. If you ask him how he’s doing, he will say, “God is good.”