Additional Columns by Sherry Antonetti: The Gift of Courage Coming Home to the Wide Open Door of the Father Loaves and Fishes To Do List for the Day, Every Day Delighting in the Unexpected Immediate Intimacy of Answered Prayers Celebrating the Song of Songs on Saint Valentine's Day Forty Lenten Resolutions

Learning to be Unafraid to Ask

Waiting for test results on our son these past few weeks have been hard. Hardest of all for me, was praying. In my writing community, another person, God bless her, posted her timidity at asking God for healing of her toe that might otherwise be amputated. Immediately I joined the chorus beseeching her not to be afraid to ask for what she needed. “If you can’t be unreasonable at God,” I argued, “Who are we supposed to be unreasonable with?”

The plank in my own eye was bothering me as I pointed out her splinter. I had echoed “Amens” to other’s prayers. I had asked for prayers. I had even said lots of prayers, but I hadn’t asked for my heart’s desire. I felt afraid I wouldn’t get it. I didn’t want to be disappointed if the answer was “No.”

I called my husband. I went to confession. I finally told God my heart’s hope and allowed all the pain and worry and fear about the pending test results to be expressed if only for a few minutes. I had been afraid to say my fears aloud, afraid to face them, afraid that if I started talking about the possibilities in anything other than positive terms, if I started crying, that the pain would go on forever. I could think of the women in the Bible asking Jesus for health, for their children’s health, for living water, for forgiveness and mercy. Never had I recognized how much courage it took to ask God for what we need.

I asked.

That afternoon, we got the call. We had a son. He had Down’s Syndrome. The facts were there. I waited to feel the crush of pain that didn’t come. My prayers had been answered but not as I planned. Both my husband and I felt oddly at peace. We had a son. He had Down’s Syndrome, and it was okay. All day long, I waited for the pain, for the wailing in my heart to begin and it didn’t. Yes it was sad, but it wasn’t awful. The next few days, we began telling our friends and our family. It was still sad, but it wasn’t the great and unbearable pain my heart had imagined when it wouldn’t let me pray.

Then my husband made a joke, just a little joke about our situation. “Well Sherry, we met because we both collected super hero comic books. Now, after years of trying, we finally produced an X-man.” And I thought I would never stop laughing. Our prayers had been answered, we were healed by God’s grace, enough to take this child on, with all we already had. God may give unbelievable tasks to all of us, like walking on water or casting out demons or feeding the poor or parenting many children, but He will also give us the mercy of abundant grace, enough to outlast any pain if we ask.

My husband and I pick a theme each year to live by. This year's theme is "Be Not Afraid." He goes before us always. Ask.

Sherry Antonetti is a mother of eight children and a freelance writer of humor and family life columns with prior publications in Absolutewrite, the Catholic Standard, Beaumont Enterprise and the Washington Post. She can be reached at Smwbmpfjm@netzero.com. You can read additional pieces from her blog, http://sherryantonettiwrites.blogspot.com.