I Need the Thing. The Thing on the Thing?

The title represents a conversation I participated in on Tuesday. On Tuesday and Thursday mornings a kind of choreographed dance goes on at the home where I nanny. Big sister goes to preschool on those mornings and when I arrive, children are finishing (or in the midst of, or playing with) breakfast. Mom runs out to remove three car seats from her car, install them in my car and then comes back inside.

We either dress the boys or simply wipe down hands and face, brush sister's hair, put on coats (which the boys insist on zipping themselves, often ending in one or more boys crying on the way to the car because we usually don't have time to allow them to use this newly-acquired skill). Then all three children are installed in their carseats. Inevitibaly, I forget to get the garage door opener (the first "thing") to put in the car so I can pull into the garage when I get back from dropping sister off. Mom leaves for work while we're en route to school.

The garage door opener lives on top of the freezer they keep in the garage (the other "thing"). After our conversation, the mom and I both laughed, acknowledging that only two moms could have that conversation and know exactly what the other one meant!

Well . . . sometimes I talk that way to God. There are times when I really don't know exactly what to say to Him. Fortunately, God knows our thoughts even when we can't express them coherently. He knows the desires of our hearts and sees the yearning of our souls. He hears the words I don't know how to speak.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. (Romans 8:26)