Does God listen to gay people? Lesbians? Bi’s? How about transgenders? I know that God listens to me. But, I have to be careful because God batches our prayers (does not answer everything immediately) and God has a sense of humor.
Many Christians believe in Guardian Angels. You probably have heard or may believe the stories – God assigns a heavenly being to be with each of us, to watch over us, to protect us, give us a gentle push – both back on the right road as well as away from those dangerous busses and runaway trucks. What most don’t know, is that a major job of our Guardian Angel is to lobby for us when we pray and try to keep God from having too much of a sense of humor when the angel presents our prayers to God.
I’ll give you an example.
I live just south of Indianapolis, Indiana. In April of 2008, I got the urge to go to Mass at Church in the morning during the week. Daily Mass was at 7:30 in the morning. 7:30 a.m. and me being there just don’t go together. I am not a morning person. Still, I wanted to get up early and I tried a few times to wake up early enough to make it to Mass. It did not happen.
On the evening of April 17, I went to bed and prayed – “Dear Lord, you see that I have been trying to get up early enough to go to Mass. If you help me wake up early, I promise that I’ll get up and go to Mass in the morning.” I figured that I’d have to go to the bathroom, or the dogs would bark, or a loud bird would chirp or something like that. I wasn’t specific in my prayer; I only said that I wanted some helping waking up early enough for Mass. My angel presented this prayer to God and the conversation went something like this:
Angel: “Hey God, (the angels are allowed to be a little familiar with God and God doesn’t mind) JJ has been trying to get up early to go to Mass and she asked that you help her wake up tomorrow so she can go. She is a pretty deep sleeper thanks to you.”
God: “JJ’s asked for that before, right?’ (God knows, but just wanted to be sure the angel was paying attention)
Angel: “Yes. A few times.”
God: “What do you think of this – it would be funny if I had an earthquake around 5:30 in the morning. That would surely get her attention. I’ll bet she’d get right out of bed and have a good laugh because she’d know I was listening. What do you think?”
Angel: “Yes, that would be hilarious, (Nervous laugh), but remember that some of those earthquakes knock stuff off the walls, houses fall down and all that. Maybe that wouldn’t be that funny.” (Nervous laugh again)
God: “It will be great. I’ll just rock three or four states – you know, just a 5.2 or something like that.”
Angel: “Yeah, (not wanting to disagree with the Boss), that would be a funny one.”
So I go to sleep and at 5:23 in the morning, I was awake, I was out of bed, and I spoke out loud directly to God: “OK. I’m up. I got the message.” Sure enough, I turned on the news and the local CBS affiliate already had a map showing where the epicenter was, how strong the earthquake was, damage reports etc.
I had caused an earthquake. Would I get in trouble with the cops? This was uncharted territory for me. I never caused an earthquake before. Fog, I caused some fog once, but that is another story.
Needless to say, I was in the pew at 7:15, a full fifteen minutes before Mass. When Mass started, the priest said, “The Lord be with you.” Everyone answered, “And also with you.” I said, “Yes. I got it. I’m up.”
God listens to me. God answers my prayers. And I’m sure God knows that I am transgender. You can’t slip something like that by without notice!
But be careful. God has a sense of humor and there is only so much your angel can do.
JJ Marie Gufreda
Author – Left-Hander in London
Jewish people also have Guardian Angels - I happen to have one, in fact. Now, as far as the earthquake goes, JJ - don't people like Pat Robertson and his kind claim that LGBT people cause disasters like earthquakes and floods - so I guess in this case they might be correct, huh? (lol)
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