Shark Week is Over...But the Legend of the Shark's Tooth...Lives On!!

                                                                               (photo courtesy whisperfortheheart.wordpress.com)

Prayer works. I truly believe that.

Meal time prayers are especially special at our house.
Okay, that’s not exactly true.

I shoot for special, but am usually given the eye roll.

Recently at a family gathering, I was immediately interrupted.
“Lord, bless this food…”
Someone else chimed in, ”Blah blah blah. Let’s eat.”

Families are fun, aren’t they?

Even when it’s just Natalie and I at the dinner table, sometimes a few bites are gobbled before a blessing is given.

Last night though, over a deliciously economical, comfort meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, the spirit of the Lord showed up.

Sort of.

It had been a particularly hard day for Natalie, but I asked anyway.

“Would you like to say the blessing?”

She gave me the look that said, “I’m not really in a blessing saying kind of mood here, in case you didn’t notice,” but then, instead, smiled enthusiastically, “Sure!”

And with all the sincerity she could muster, “Thank you God for everything you do for us. Bless the thieves and the liars and the stealers. Amen.”

“The steelers? Like the Pittsburgh Steelers? Is it football season already?”

“No. The stealers that stole my Iphone.”

“Oh. Okay. Well you already said, thieves, so I was confused. Stealers and thieves are the same thing.”

There is absolutely nothing you can do or say to cheer up an almost 16 year old, who’s Iphone 5 was stolen, when she accidentally set it down in a skater store at the mall.

“We should pray that God moves on the heart of whoever took it, to return it. Or at least turn it on so we can use the locator service.”

The “pray for your enemies,” Polly Anna perspective was less than helpful.

What to say? What to say? What to say?

“I’m so sorry. I really can’t imagine how you feel. I know your whole life is in that phone. It’s terrible. It really is. Right now, I can’t buy another one. I’m sorry.”

“It’s probably like the equivalent of someone stealing our Atari when I was a kid.”

“No,” she said, “It’s not like that.”
“It would be more like someone stealing your laptop so you can’t write your blogs.”

Hobby blogs, she called them. Nice.

Hobby Lobby? Holly Hobby. Holy hobby? Whatever.

The eye roll doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“Well he sees everything. That’s all I’m saying.”

Lately, for my own purposes, I’ve been trying to recall the many times God has come through for us.

“Oh! Remember that time when you were in 4th or 5th grade? And you had just gotten your brand new LL Bean corduroy coat? The pink one with the fur on the collar and the shark tooth buttons?”

“Yes. I remember.”

“Remember how much you really, really wanted that coat? And then, like the first week of wearing it to school, you went down the metal slide sideways and one of the shark tooths (teeth?) broke in half?”

“I know the story mom.”

My mouth, as big as JAWS, cannot shut up.

Sherriff Brody couldn’t stop me with a high voltage, underground electric cable.

“I know. But how awesome was that? We prayed it would be found. You thought it was lost forever in a trillion million thousand grains of sand.”

The whole Girl Scout Troop prayed for the finding of that broken tooth button.

“And then what happened? Huh? What happened then?”

“I know what happened, mom.”

She wasn’t exactly giving me her seal of approval.

I was trying to build momentum, but the moment felt more like the Shark Week commercial featuring Snuffy the Seal.

Ignoring her pleas to stop, and with great enthusiasm, I finished the story for her.

“Three days later, after many recesses and running feet, Erin Haley was playing in the sand, and found it! That teeny, tiny piece of button, found, in all that stirred up sand.”

I can still see Natalie’s smiling face as she got in the car that day after school, sharing with me the amazing story of the recess miracle, “She yelled out at me, like Erin always does, “Natalie! Is this your shark tooth button? I’m like, Oh my gosh! It is! It is!!”

“Can you believe it mom?”
“Yes, baby girl. Of course I believe it.”

I believed it then.

I believe it now.

We weren’t able to glue the button back onto the coat. For some reason, the Super Glue wouldn’t stick.

But, I know that story did.

It was a faith builder for myself, and a lot of little girls that day.

And I kept that shark tooth button.

For times just like these.
When we so desperately need to remember, that prayer works.