Luck

So you pray... for the health of your children, for the heath of your family & friends... to land a promotion, to do well on a exam, to get your weight down... hell, to get a good parking spot at the mall during the Xmas rush. How does God decide who's prayers to answer and who's he will not? Do you really think it works like that?? Before Grace became ill, things were very simple in my world. I lived my life believing that good things came to good people. So I would wake up each morning and just try to be good... work an honest job, keep a functional, loving home, be a good mom, wife, daughter and friend... just generally be nice, non-judgmental of others and as generous as I was able to be. This simple world lead me to believe that this goodness would be returned to me... and if not to me in my life time then to my children. Goodness given would result in goodness returned... simple. So where am I at now?? Well I no longer live in that simple world. I am no long that naive. I'm not even sure if god has the ability to answer prayers or if that's something just made up by humans. See I think as humans we like to be in control of our environment. Maybe when we are unable to control our environment, we then turn to prayer in hopes that what is not in our control than may possibly be in God's and via prayer we can influence his granting of blessings and as a result regain some level of control again. I remember one evening while Grace was close to death, I sat by her side in bed and talked about life with her palliative care doc. I remember Dr. Newman saying that she rarely prayed for specifics, she only prayed for general "goods". I figured this was a function of her roll. How could she pray for one child by name when she cared for so many? I assumed it would only be logical for her to pray for all ill/palliative children... you know, to be "fair". Now the more I think about it the more I question whether or not this was why she chose to pray like this. As I continue to examine my life circumstance, I realize specific prayer kinda makes me angry in a way. It is actually quite selfish and arrogant. Why would one believe that God would answer their prayers over another's? We all know not all prayers are answered so with specific praying we must be hoping that ours are granted at the expense of another's. When ones specific prayers are answered would that then suggest that they were more worthy than someone else who may not have been dealt the same favorable fate. Believe me, when my baby was ill and then dying, I prayed so hard that I nearly wore my knees out. Yet here I am... with the only remains of Grace to kiss good night being to cold lid of her marble urn. So tell me what went wrong?? Nothing! Because life is not as simple as good out, good in... abundant prayer, abundant blessings. There's this mystical factor called luck. Sometimes your lucky and some times your not. Keep this in mind... LUCK. No matter how good of a person you are and how much you pray you can just have shit luck. Then again you could be a miserable sacrilegious person and have amazing luck. Luck has a lot to do with where you find your self from one day to the next. So when you look at all that you've achieved, I think it's important to recognize how hard you have worked to get to where you're at but also recognize that in ways luck has been on your side. And vise versa of course... if your down and out and you feel you've worked so hard without getting to where you want to be, maybe luck just has not been on your side. Maybe the street kid that is annoying you when he attempts to squeegee your window has just had really shitty luck and their circumstance is not as a result of lack of effort. It drives me crazy when someone refuses to give money to street people because they "have two arms and legs" and for some reason this means they are capable of achieving employment so they will not part with their coins when asked. Maybe this person has just had really bad luck. I know I've just had really bad luck. Even with two arms, two legs, a loving healthy husband and a functional uterus, I'm childless... shitty, shitty, luck. Take some time... thnik about it.

Mama misses you baby.
L~

P.S. Here's praying for good luck! :-)

P.S.S. We're walking on Sat. Thanks to all that have donated. You can donated 24/7 at www.gracestanley.org. All proceeds going to Brain Tumour research via the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.