What Lola Taught Me about Prayer.

Even after years of prayers that have been answered in ways from the mundane to the miraculous, I still get shocked by God's huge involvement in the details of my life. First, a story: recently, my beloved SUV "Lola" had to be put down. She was a great vehicle that had 200,000 miles on her, many of which she got on filming trips for our Looking for God in America documentary. Alas, we were given notice and began looking for replacements. We started praying that God would pick out the right car for us.

Even after years of prayers that have been answered in ways from the mundane to the miraculous, I still get shocked by God's huge involvement in the details of my life. First, a story: recently, my beloved SUV "Lola" had to be put down. She was a great vehicle that had 200,000 miles on her, many of which she got on filming trips for our Looking for God in America documentary. Alas, we were given notice and began looking for replacements. We started praying that God would pick out the right car for us.

Not wanting to go into debt, our budget was a tad (if you can call several thousands of dollars a "tad") smaller than what we would need to get another Lola.  We looked for other options, and day after day, we were told we'd need to compromise–be flexible about high mileage, or seating, or dependability, or our unwillingness to finance. But this is the last car we'll buy before returning to grad school, so we really believed God was leading us to a dependable car and no payments. We also believe God's leading us toward adoption of several kiddos, so the size had to work. We just couldn't see that we could compromise in those areas, but every car dealer looked at us like we were crazy.

We just kept praying that God would lead us to the right car. Through a strange turn of events (which included one dealer printing out a list of all the competitors' cars to show us that his price was the best), we found it: our car. It was like Lola, but on steroids–more seats, more options, better condition, in our price range.

Once again, God lavished gifts on us, but there's a bigger takeaway. God hears our littlest prayers and our biggest ones. Even when he doesn't answer my prayers about fertility or a better paying job in the way I want, he still hears those prayers and loves me through them. He holds me during heartache or fear or hope. He urges me not to compromise, not to take the easy way out, not to listen to voices that say we need to be flexible with what God told us. And he will answer prayers according to his perfect will, in his perfect timing, which is easier to see and wait for if we've been praying for it all along.