There is a running list on my phone of people I am praying for. It trails back a few years, and rereading it is a meandering walkabout. Some names appear often. Others are of friends who faced off with surgery, or sickness, and it is satisfying to recall their healing. There are groups as well that came into my circle of petition.... a high school in Florida, a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the faculty, a chapel in San Francisco.  In flashes of compassion I sometimes added the names of those I had cast as adversaries. 

 

As I scroll back through the history of my prayer life, I add a symbol when things appear to have resolved. Often it is a heart, or an airplane if it was a wish for safe travel, or a baby if my attention was on a smooth birth, or a house when that was what was hoped for. 

 

I confess that there are a couple I do not recognize. Many months later, my ability to recall the specific requests I have responded to has faded. What was it they wanted? Did it come to pass? But that need not diminish my willingness to keep trying. 

 

It is significant to me to revisit these requests of God. How must He feel, if I am hurling a relentless to do list into the clouds, with no regard for which ones land softly?