God's Desk

 This isn't a glowing report. It isn't a testimony. It isn't a praise report. It isn't positive, glowing, or exciting. It isn't an elegant dissertation. And it isn't even very good writing. I'm sharing life with you. Gross ugly life. And believe me when I say, this is not as ugly as it gets. It can get so much worse.  

I had a terrible meltdown on Friday night, the 18 of August. I'm struggling with a few things. I get told I'm strong a lot, but it isn't true. I used to think it was true. Because I should be dead a dozen times over. 

I was upset when I went to bed that night. I lay there for a bit, but was so upset that I got up and sat down on the edge of the bed. I tried praying and became so upset and really overwhelmed by the situation I found myself in. 

So, I talked to God and named all the things I'd prayed about and all the people I'd prayed for, and all the circumstances I'd prayed about. I asked God about those prayers. Did they even matter? Had anyone even heard me?

I have prayed the same prayers over and over, year after year, for the same people, places, and things. For needs, dreams, hopes, and desires. For healing, freedom, and forgiveness. Thousands and thousands of prayers. They cover a massive desk sitting right there in front of the God I gave them to. They're strewn everywhere. I knew he had heard me. And tonight, I could see them lying there.   

 I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I don't know what I felt, but seeing it was like a hammer blow or being ripped apart. I was gutted. 

Instantly, I knew that there was not a single prayer left in me. There was nothing left in me.

Please understand, I didn't see answered prayers. I saw all the unanswered ones. All of them. 

I was seeing every prayer I've ever prayed. Every prayer. I knew some by heart. All of them, for decades, already in his hands, several copies of some. Many bore annotations indicating a reduction in the requests, hoping that this would help. 

It didn't. They lay all over the place as if a great wind had tossed them about the room, and the desk was still covered.

I wanted to pray about what I was seeing, and I realized I couldn't. I couldn't think of a single thing to pray about that I had not prayed for a thousand times. I knew because I could see them. 

I've seen papers splayed out like that. I worked with files. A table covered in piles of paper for the person handling it to process. And there they were, all my prayers. Some people in those prayers were dead. Answers are no longer necessary. Nothing I could do would change the outcome now. No prayer could help. 

I sat on the edge of my bed, sobbing and staring at years of prayers that had no answers. And I'd just put one more on that desk when I saw them. And everything collapsed. 

I collapsed under the weight of it. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't stop crying. And I couldn't unsee that pile of prayers. And I wanted to pray about what I was experiencing. But I had no words and couldn't form a sentence. It's doubtful I could have uttered them if I had them.  My mind would not come up with any words to pray. I'll be honest, it was awful. But there was nothing. 

I don't want to tell you about that night. It had been an awful night. And I'd been sitting on that bed for two hours, crying so hard I could hardly breathe. 

Don't ask me to explain what I saw, or how, or why. I can't answer any of those questions. I was so distraught I sent a message to a friend at that point and asked them when they saw the message to pray for me. Because I could not even pray for myself. I just didn't have anything left. Not an ounce.

I don't have a biblical reference for what happened. I don't have a psychological reference. I'm not claiming that they don't exist. I'm saying I do not know. I just know what I witnessed. But at 2:30 a.m. I smothered the crying. I was done. 

I spoke into the air, empty air. 

I have no more prayers. None. The only thing I am asking you now is to be allowed to worship you. To give you praise and thanks. That's all. I have nothing else to ask of you. I don't have anyone else to pray for. I have no hopes and no dreams left. You have every prayer I've prayed. If they matter, you have them. I'm empty of them. I do not know why or understand. I'll just worship you. 

When I woke up the next morning, exhausted, bruised, and feeling as if I'd been dropped down an elevator shaft, I still had nothing to pray about. Nothing came to mind. So I just read my Bible as usual and gave my usual praise and worship to God. 

Maybe things will get better. Maybe. Maybe I will wake up. Maybe life will ... no. It won't. It's too late.

I used to have days when I thought, I can get through this. Tomorrow things will look better. This won't last. I'm strong and I can handle it. But I no longer believe in better. I've been living in survival so long, I don't know anything else.

I can't take many more nights sitting on the edge of my bed, blinded by pain and despair, and unable to breathe from the agony. 

Every prayer I ever prayed is sitting on that table before God. Prayers for people I loved, people I thought loved me, people who liked me, hated me and mistreated me. People I never heard from and some I don't even know. So many prayers. But they're out of my hands. I don't want them back. 

Then this week... Monday... September 28th, 2026. I opened a box that showed me my whole life was a lie. It was all smoke and mirrors—everything I had believed, trusted, and counted on went up in smoke. The very people I was sure I mattered to ... I didn't. 

Love is honorable. And if it isn't, it isn't love. 

So many people told me I was strong. I realized that was just a way of saying I was on my own. At no point did I ever matter to anyone. Everything I believed I had, I did not have at all.  

The Dangerous Gift

While reading Michael Heiser’s The Unseen Realm this morning, I was suddenly overwhelmed by a thought: God created us with far more power than we realize.

Free will is a superpower.

We are allowed to choose what we think, what we do, and how we respond to what happens to us. We can reason, understand, create, and act. God placed us here with an astonishing degree of freedom and, within that gift, called us to love Him—for who He is and for what He has freely given us.

Our imaginations often begin with Eden, as though God came into existence when He created Adam and Eve. He made them, placed them in the garden, and then sat back to watch the show. But God was God before humanity took its first breath. What He was doing before He created us, I do not know. What I do know is that the power He placed in human hands was immense.

Human history proves it. We have built a world so complex that no single person can fully comprehend it. We have created civilizations, technologies, medicines, music, literature, and machines capable of reaching beyond our planet. That is power.

Yet for all that power, we cannot seem to clean up our act.

With all our intelligence and freedom, we still struggle to choose goodness, kindness, compassion, and love. We kill. We abuse our bodies, wound our families, and exploit one another. We hold extraordinary power in our hands—and that is before we even consider the power of God at work in a willing human heart. Yet we so often live as though we are helpless and without purpose.

We do not even recognize the Creator who placed us here and gave us this superpower.

Free will. Who would do such a thing? Why give a created being the freedom to refuse its Creator? It is a dangerous gift. Human choice is literally capable of destroying the planet, yet we rarely recognize its magnitude. We reduce it to a declaration: I have the right to do as I please. My right—not yours, but mine.

Free will is the ability to choose, but it is more than choice. It allows us to reason, understand, decide, and then act. It enables us to ask not only, “What do I want?” but also, “What is right?”

The Creator placed this gift in our hands as though saying, “Here. Open this. You are going to love it.”

And as soon as we opened it, we forgot Him.

That takes a terrible kind of power—to face your Creator and forget His face. To receive everything and forget the One who gave it. Yet He did not walk away. He did not leave us here or abandon us as we abandoned Him.

This is where superpowers are measured.

We possess great power, but ours is not the greatest. It takes a greater power to create something, see it become damaged, and refuse to destroy it.

That power is love.

We like to believe we possess that superpower too, and in some measure we do. But we do not wield it well. We are damaged creatures running corrupted operating systems, yet we still hold immense power in our hands.

To us, free will can look as reckless as placing a loaded weapon in the hands of a child. The danger is obvious, yet God does not revoke the gift. From our limited point of view, that does not sound wise.

But God knew what we would do with our freedom, and He made a way to repair what we would break.

Then we used our superpower to kill the very One who came to restore us. We put Him in a tomb and believed that took care of that.

It did not.

Once again, we failed to recognize Him. He stood directly in front of us, and still we could not remember His face. The Creator entered His own creation to repair what we had broken, and we used the freedom He gave us against Him.

I do not even want to imagine how difficult that must have been. I have looked into my children’s faces, seen that something in them was broken, and wanted desperately to make it whole. When I could not repair the damage, the helplessness felt like physical pain. I have looked at sick loved ones and wished I had the power to go back and undo whatever brought them to that moment.

But my superpower could not do it.

Yet He did what I could not.

We were not worth such a sacrifice—not from my limited point of view. But I do not see as He sees. To Him, we were worth saving. He still made a way for us to repent—to change our minds, turn our hearts toward Him, and return to Him.

We have been entrusted with a superpower, even though we barely understand it. Perhaps that is why the enemy works so hard to corrupt our freedom, distort our desires, and persuade us to use God’s gift against Him.

Free will is our superpower.

Love is His.

Why Worry?

 I've been trying to get through a Bible study on YouVersion called "Why Worry?". While I was doing today's lesson, I realized something that startled me.

I am not worried. Anyone who knows me will think I'm lying or delusional. And yet, it's true. The study described worry, and I didn't have that. 

Things I don't worry about. 

• So, I have paid my bills and will pay them. 
• I'm in pain. Some days it is mild, other days it is unbearable and I cry a lot. I don't worry. I hurt.
• Mike's situation is beyond my control. I'm concerned for him, but I can't fix it, and I know it. He will get surgery and may get better or not. Worry isn't an issue. It is what it is. I'm going to be unhappy or I'll be happy. But for now it doesn't exist.
• I can take care of myself despite pain and multiple medical issues. And I care for the needs of several other people. None of that worries me. I always seem to have the ability to do that, so I just do what I have to do. 
• Today is my only obstacle. I'm not worried about getting through today. Either I will or I won't, and neither matters. It's do or die. 

What I have is anger and frustration, and I'm not happy. I don't worry about those things because they actually exist. They're real. I'd be worried if I thought it would help. It won't. 

So here is the list of things I could be worried about, but actually don't care enough about them to be worried.

• I'm not happy or content.
• I'm disorganized and frustrated by it. I've never been disorganized.
• I miss my life as it was before death cheated me. 
• I miss my granddaughter. She's too busy for me now. One day she will not be but I'm not worried by it. I'm sorry for her and disappointed in her.
• I miss my family. The road runs both ways, and they've made choices. I spent years driving a whole day to see people. I am not worried about it. I am disappointed, but I'll get over it. I have to get through today's obstacles and don't have enough time left to worry about other people's shortcomings. 
• I have wants but no needs. I was promised only that my needs would be met. They are. I am not worried about the wants. I could be disappointed, but whatever.  

So:  Rage -yes. Fury - yes. Disappointment - yes. Grief - yes. Pain - yes. 

Worry? Not so much. 

Life is an immense disappointment. We're led to believe it gets better, but it doesn't. It's painful and a thief. Most of the time you will not get what you expect or want. 

There will always be disappointment and grief. That's not worry. They won't kill you; worry will. Recognize the difference between worry and the rest of it. It's about letting things go. If you're nagging it, it's worry. If you're experiencing sadness or disappointment, probably not worry but certainly not fun. Cry and move on.

Death will visit you multiple times to remind you he's coming for you. Don't be afraid of him. He has nothing else to do, and real life begins after he's done with you. He has to repeat his job every moment of every day until one day he dies, too. That's a wasted existence. Don't follow his lead.

You don't have any choices in your life other than picking which road to follow. Your life is already mapped out, and the road you choose will determine the end. You can't change any road you choose. You just have to keep walking. Things will happen. Try to prevent bad things, but refuse to be surprised when you can't. 

There is no tomorrow because it doesn't exist yet. You will create it if you wake up in the morning. Then it will be just another today to get through. Do something different and hope for a different outcome. That's probably another definition of insanity. Enjoy it. It may be the only time you can feel in control. 

You're not in control. Ever.

God is in control. He is sovereign. You can't control him either.

Worry: To feel uneasy or concerned about something; to be troubled. Synonym: brood.