God’s Box

Please find below my writing for this week’s women’s ministry newsletter at Riverbend Church, dated Monday April 6.

Growing up, my family had what we called “God’s box,” an ordinary shoebox with a slot cut into the lid.  We would write down our prayer lists, pray over them, and drop them through the slot and into God’s hands.  

The practice began before I was born.  One of my favorite notes is my Dad’s prayer for “new baby,” written in his characteristic chicken scratch and dated eight months before I showed up.  And it continues to this day, sitting on the upper shelf of my Dad’s closet next to many bags full of past prayers.  It is a testimony: a living family record of our relationship with God, and of His faithfulness. 

I loved our God’s box.  As a little girl, it showed me my parents’ commitment to prayer, and taught me how to pray.  Our family bonded over it, my brother and I taking a literal lesson in how to identify and share our burdens.  But it also grew my faith.  Whenever I would open the box and rifle through its contents, I found old worries on the scraps of paper—all pressing, all seemingly insurmountable when written—that I had simply forgotten once God took over.  They spoke to me of how big God was, and how swift and real His answers. 

But the biggest lesson of God’s box was how to let go.  My Dad always said, “When you put a thing into God’s box, you give it to God.  So if you want to worry about it again, you have to take it back out, out of His hands.”  Although sometimes I considered it, I never did get the courage to fish any of my prayers back out.  I just wasn’t willing to tell God that He should stop working on it, or that I could do a better job by worrying.

The Bible says, “Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  And the peace of God, which surpasses every thought, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 4:5-7).    

 I realized this past week that I needed a God’s box now; I needed to practice all over again how to leave my worries with Him.  So yesterday as we sheltered in place, my family crafted our own.  Embellished by the exuberant decorating of my 7- and 11-year olds, ours looks a little different than my Dad’s no-nonsense box, but the spirit remains the same.

 I know we will drop into it requests that feel urgent and overwhelming.  But I also know that God is bigger than anything we could write down.  He will listen attentively and will begin working at once, taking our scribbled out notes into His loving hands.  And He will work all things out for our good, even as I continue to learn, alongside my children, what it means to surrender, and to trust.