are you there god? it's me ellie

if you are sick of hearing about surfing, this post is not for you.  well...  technically, it isn't about surfing at all...  but it centers around surfing.  six of one...

but you might like it.  and we've all heard that "don't judge a book by its cover subject quote".

moving on.

last week my e came to me and told me that she had found a surfboard on craigslist that she would like to buy.  she was insistent and impatient and rude in demanding that i look at the listing this minute.  i was in the middle of the little's bedtime routine and told my ever so excited and overly demanding e that i would not indulge this behavior and that she would have to wait.

she couldn't.  she wouldn't.  the ants in her pants got the best of her and self-control flew out the window.  as a consequence, i told her i would not look at the board until the next day.

at bedtime she apologized and we made amends.  i agreed to check out the board in the morning.  the next day i read the ad and felt like she had made a pretty solid choice and that her constant searching had paid off.  my girl had found a very reasonably priced board that would suit her needs.  i texted the owner of the board with my request to purchase it.

he didn't get back to me for several hours.  it nearly killed e.  she was beside herself when she arrived home from school with no real news.

i texted the guy again only to discover that the board was being checked out by another person over the weekend.  he promised to let me know if it didn't work out.  as a little nudge in e's favor, i told him it was for my nine year old and that she was buying a board with her own money.  she would be eager to hear if it would be hers.

he then replied with something cool...  he told me that this board had been his first board when he was 12.  it was the beginning of a love of surfing for him.  he'd be in touch.

i could only hope.  but the deal was a really good one so i decided we had best not count our chickens. chances were that the first in line would take the board.

we waited through the weekend with my e asking repeatedly if i had heard anything from the dude.  i had not.

on monday, almost to the moment that she hopped into the car in the carpool line, the dude texted me to say that the board was all ours if we wanted it.  he lived in sunnyvale (about an hour away in traffic) and that we could pick it up on tuesday.

i made the announcement to e.

after she danced around and yelped with excitement, she declared, "God answered my prayers, mom.  He heard me!"

oy.  if i am totally honest here, i had a pang of fear in my heart.  i know God answers prayer and that He cares for the intimate desires of our hearts, but i was afraid.  what if the guy flaked out?  what if the board was a mess?  what if...  what if...  what if...

what if this didn't work out and ellie felt like God had failed her.

ouch.

those were my real, true thoughts.  i'm not proud of them.  but in that moment, i was her mother and i forgot that God cares about her even more than i ever possibly could.  and so my momma bear kicked in a little and wanted to protect her...  from being disappointed by God.  as if that were possible.

i admit, i forget sometimes that His plan is never disappointing in the long run.  in the short run it can feel that way.  but in the long run it just isn't.

and so after school we headed for the highway to sunnyvale.  there was just one problem.  i texted the guy for the address of where we were to meet and he hadn't yet replied.  he had told me he would give me an address at 3:00 and at 3:15 i was still without a reply text.

knowing that the drive would be long in rush hour traffic, i went in the direction of sunnyvale.  we drove for about 40 minutes and still no reply text.  i was beginning to get nervous, to say the least.

d needed an emergency potty break so we pulled over and headed into a restroom to attend the most pressing need.  i was beginning to feel stressed and the girls could feel it.  ellie asked multiple times if i had heard from the surfboard guy.

nope.  not a peep.

with nothing left to do, i asked the girls if they wanted to pray,

yes.  yes they did.

and so as i drove down interstate 880, i prayed out loud with the girls.  as the words, "amen" hit my lips the beep of an incoming text gurgled out of my phone.

the girls let out a cheer.

"momma, is it the guy?"

"yes!  yes, it is!"

and so i pulled off the road to punch the address into the navigation system.  and in just a few short minutes, we were at our destination.  the surfboard guy was standing next to a basketball court at a local park waiting to make the deal.

my girls jumped out of the car to examine the board while the seller introduced himself.  he made some chit-chat and he took ellie's cash (allowing me to photograph the transaction without capturing his face for fear of charges of soliciting from a minor).

ellie insisted on putting the board into the car herself and he continued to chat with me.  he proceeded to tell me that about 20 people had shown interest in the board and that all 20 had flaked at the last minute.   he couldn't believe that she was the girl that got the great deal.  you could tell he was excited to sell his first board from 1987 to someone else that was getting their first board.  he even showed a little disbelief that she was a surfer.

i just looked at him and felt this little nudge from the Holy Spirit to tell my truth.

"well, it just so happens that my nine year old believes in the power of prayer.  as soon as she found this board she began to pray.  and here we are."

his eyes got wide and he said, "really?"

i nodded.

he shook my hand again and said, "that's really cool."  and then he walked off into the park.

and ellie beamed for the entire drive home while rubbing her hand on her "new" board.

and to think, i thought i needed to protect her from the power of prayer!

amen!