Answered

“I'm pregnant.” Little girl eyes meet mine in the church hallway as a teenager tells me why is she isn't going to be at youth group for awhile, and, in retrospect, why she hasn't been there. It's been months since I've seen her, but she wants me to know. There's a new layer of fear in her eyes, but she tells me she's getting married to the baby's dad in April, after they've both had another birthday.

We talk for a few brief moments before we both have to go. I give a hug and a promise that she is always welcome, and, as quickly as it started, the encounter is over.

Not twenty-four hours earlier, I prayed that she would pop up at church again, and a little whisper in the back of my mind reminds me that God answers prayer (and that the answers don't always come the way we want them to).

We pray for Jesus to be tangibly present in our small groups and He comes, but He often comes in some of his more distressing disguises. He comes in the child who fixates on a single noise and continues to perseverate on it all morning until the other kids are ready to strangle him. He comes in kids with anger management issues and children who are so used to taking care of things themselves that they don't know how to function in a setting where we do what is best for the most.

“Can we learn the verse about fear?” Little boy eyes that see too much meet mine across the circle as one of my fifth graders points out a verse farther down on the sheet. The briefest flicker of that fear dances across his face, and I nod. He reads where it goes on to talk about the Spirit helping us to be in control and purses his lips, “I think that's the one that we need this week.”

They slip off to “their” spots to pray and all of the labels fall off, because, if they know one thing, it is that God answers prayers. For a few minutes, they all comply, no stragglers, no “lost” ones who don't want to transition to this new thing. For this moment, they are all fully present.

Because, God does answer prayers. Sometimes they get answered inside out and backwards, and sometimes they get answered straight up – like teenagers who come up to introduce themselves, wanting to get involved with justice issues; or visiting speakers standing on the stage and declaring that Christians are commanded to stand up for the oppressed and stand against injustice. Either way, He answers.