As you wish

Yesterday I introduced my 11-year-old daughter to The Princess Bride, which I hadn't watched in a long, long time. What fun that was!!

Isn't it funny how old movies, or songs, can trigger memories? When The Princess Bride came out, I was fairly newly married and out of work because the small computer start-up I had been working for had folded. I actually worked without pay for over a year, and finally quit when I couldn't take the stress of working out of my boss's house as the business faded away and his marriage failed. It was great technical work experience, but not the best emotional time.

So I was home full time for a while, and able to spend more time with some of my other stay-at-home women friends from church. One of the things we did was to watch a new (at the time) soap opera called "Santa Barbara". That was (and still is) the only soap opera I have ever watched. I remember two women, one a young mom, beautiful and put-together, until that time well-off (they had just suffered financial troubles) - the other was older, overweight, wizened, poor and hard-lived, sensitive to the Spirit's voice and often prophetic, yet not always stable and balanced. It always made me laugh to hear that they would call each other on the phone every day after "Santa Barbara" was on, to talk about what happened that day on the soap.

We prayed together a few times, for "emotional healing" for my beautiful friends' checkered past. This is one of my most painful memories of prayer. It felt like we performed open heart surgery on this woman, then somehow - as she lay there on the operating table bleeding and exposed - somehow, we didn't have the tools to help bring about healing. I have never felt so inadequate in prayer.

I have completely lost touch with both these families since that time, but I have often wondered how my friend has fared, as her family went on to experience many more trials after that time. I am not too concerned about that specific painful prayer time, as I am confident that God was continuing to bring healing and love to my friend. But I have retained to this day a cautiousness about prayer and supernatural "words", as I have experienced how limited we can be in our understanding. I believe that God still speaks, but I know that we are human, and any words that come, come through our very human filters.

If I were really clever, I would now find a way to tie this back into that great line from The Princess Bride - "As you wish"! But I'm not that clever, and this is just my ramble for the afternoon. Actually, I'm probably just avoiding thinking about tax paperwork and other things that I have to get done...

(UPDATE 2/21/05: I totally forgot to mention the main connection between these ramblings - that the actress from The Princess Bride played on the soap Santa Barbara. Silly me!)