“Maybe it’s a demon.” My wife says and I can’t tell if she’s joking at first.
She must be, but at first I am not so sure. My wife leads a Community Bible Study (CBS) group of about 20 woman every Tuesday morning. And for some reason, our four year old McRae has thrown up every Monday night, the night before the Bible study, for four weeks in a row. Well it’s not a perfect streak, McRae didn’t throw up the one week that CBS was canceled.
And on the Tuesday morning in question, she got up, walked downstairs, and asked my wife if CBS was today. When my wife said “yes, we need to get ready to go” McRae nodded her head and then proceeded to throw up. So when Jenny asked if maybe our house was under control from some sort of throw up demon, I thought she might be serious.
She wasn’t, but then we started talking about how to ask for that as a prayer request. How do you say, “We may or may not have a vomit demon in our house, a VD if you will, and it would be awesome if we did not in fact have a house with VD.”
How do you say that? How do you confess a really weird prayer request? (Which are different from “this is weird, but” moments.) If only there was a satirical website where I could discuss such a topic.
3 ways to share a weird prayer request.
1. Pretend it’s not weird.
Act like it’s perfectly normal that your uncle is starting a militia that uses jungle cats instead of firearms. Just say, “Can you pray for my uncle Carl, he got another tiger and he’s been doing so well but we’re afraid he’s going to get the big cats back together and wreak some havoc on his local government.” Then if someone acts like that’s weird, pretend it’s not and then make them feel like they’re the only one who doesn’t have a relative who specializes in feline firearms.
2. Sandwich it.
Don’t send out that weird prayer request by itself. Sandwich it into the middle of two other completely normal prayers. Like so, “I’d like continued prayer about my job situation, I think a drifter might be using our kid’s backyard treehouse as a meth lab, and my in-laws are coming to stay with us this weekend and I don’t get along with Dan’s mom, sooo.” See that, you almost missed the drifter meth lab. Always trust the “prayer sandwich.”
3. Save it.
Don’t throw it out in the middle of the prayer circle. Wait until people are cleaning up the snacks or walking to their cars in the parking lot. And then, like a tiny prayer grenade say, “I’ll see you next week and by the way, I’m still really thinking about donating a kidney to country start Kenny Chesney. He hasn’t asked but you just never know. I’d just feel better if he had one on reserve now that he’s becoming our generation’s Jimmy Buffet. Can you pray about that? Thanks! Have a good night.” Then just jump in your car and leave. Done and done.
My wife, bless her heart, rejected these awesome suggestions. She just came right out and asked her friend Lori to pray. Tomatos, tomatoes.
Have you ever had a weird prayer request?
