Melinda Mindy Delph

Picture if you will…I walk into church each week with 2 of my 3 children. I sit down with a child on each side of me. Nick to the left, he’s 6ft tall and on my right, Lexie, only 4ft something. One is seventeen and one is nine yet the difference intellectually isn’t as different as should be. Also unmatched is their innocence and purity. Nick sometimes stands to offer praise or to request a prayer…by the grace of God he has yet to speak on what you’d expect to come from a young man who is seventeen. Instead he prays for all the people he has liked that dismissed him as different, irritating or strange…the ones who caused him pain. I, the one who should be leading by example, is sitting there feeling ashamed by the things I’m thinking about those that dismissed him as different, strange or irritating. When he stands to request prayer and I hear the confusion and distress in his voice…the pain that washes over me always makes me feel like I might pass out.

 

Tears flowing down my cheeks every Sunday as I sit there listening to my confused and heartbroken child, knowing I cannot fix that pain for him…not ever. Invisibly, I take in my 23yr old son who won’t be sitting next to me in church until he turns 27. My young man will be a full grown man whose decisions take more than the “toll” he thinks they do. I open the bulletin and in it see both my sons and myself…on the prayer request list. I wonder to myself if anyone knows I’m actually married…I have a husband, visibly absent week after week.

 

I look to my right, my little girl sitting there with her long blonde hair, looking up to me with gleam in her eyes. She knows my heart even when I don’t speak a single word. I wonder to myself if she is so good that in the confusion and sadness I carry for her brothers, she somehow gets lost. I panic at the thought. We bow our heads in prayer, I can hear Lexie saying the Lord’s Prayer in her tiny little voice and of course I hear Nick because he is saying it louder than anyone else in the entire building. We finish and our pastor begins to speak. I look down to my daughter again and I see her looking at me now with sadness in her eyes. I know her heart as well as she knows mine. I ask her what’s wrong, hoping that my own sadness isn’t overwhelming her or confusing her. She opens her bulletin and whispers to me, “Mommy, why am I not on that prayer list?” “Does that mean that you don’t pray for me too?”

 

I immediately think to myself, “Dear God, please don’t let my heart give out right here and now, sitting here between my children.” I explain to her as best I can in a whisper (with secret disgust in myself for what I inadvertently caused her to feel) “Lexie, that list is for request, I requested that Nick not feel so lonely and misunderstood and I requested that God be with Billy and keep him well until he comes back home.” I explained that there isn’t a “Praise” side in the bulletin or she would be on it. I whisper, “I thank and I request for both of your brothers but luckily I only find myself thanking for you.” There isn’t a “Thank you” side. I am wrong though. As much as I praise God for my children and request for my boys, my fears for my daughter are monumental. She bears the same burdens as her brothers and I do. She carries the weight without complaint and with a grace unseen in most her age.

 

 

Children’s church is announced and off she goes with a beautiful smile on her face. At the end of service our pastor invites those that feel the need; to come to the altar and give over to God whatever it is that might be stirring in our hearts. I look up at Nick and ask if he would like to go. He replies as only Nick can, in a matter of fact, direct and purely honest way…”No thanks, the last time I did that I lost 2 friends.” WHAT!!?? I say, “No Nick, that’s isn’t at all why you lost those friends and in fact, because you do feel that way, we should definitely go up and pray about THAT, maybe ask God for 2 more friends.” That was enough to make him go up with me. Brother Bill (our pastor), comes over, kneels down and prays with us. As he is praying with us, Nick put his head right onto my chest and I couldn’t tell if he was seeking or providing comfort but I put my hand on his head and held him tighter and longer than he has allowed me in years.  

 

Grief, unbearable… Heart, broke beyond repair…Mind, grateful for everything I am given…Faith, strong and unpretentious…Hope, boundless!