Almost a year ago, I had a case of the hiccups. Bad hiccups. The ones that are so strong that they hurt. After 30 minutes straight of violent, painful hiccups every 20 seconds that would not respond to any creative cure, I was pretty annoyed. In an angry yell, I cried to God, "Jesus, take them away!!"
They vanished instantly.
I was immediately humbled at how aggressive hiccups disappeared without a trace after a prayer. Micah was in the other room, and we got into a discussion about how it's probably not good to yell at God, even if He does answer. So I apologized to God, thanked Him, and moved on.
I don't get hiccups very often, but a few weeks later, they returned. This time, I used a different approach. I closed my eyes, and in my head, I quietly (and politely) asked God to take my hiccups away.
They vanished instantly.
This soon became my habit. Every time I got hiccups, I prayed, and they disappeared immediately. After I had done this a few times, I had quietly decided that I was praying too much over trivial things, and I should save my prayers over more important matters. So one night before going to bed, I was hiccuping for almost an hour straight, and this time, Micah was getting annoyed.
"I'm not going to be able to fall asleep with you like that," Micah quietly said.
"You think I can help it?!" I demanded to him in angry disbelief.
"Pray," he simply reminded me.
I sighed, realizing I hadn't prayed yet. "I just don't want to do that too much... or it's gonna stop working, you now?"
But after Micah mentioned this, I took a pause, prayed silently in my head, and sure enough, the hour-long hiccups just happened to find their conclusion immediately afterward.
Then came our prayer request that went beyond the trivial. We needed our visas to go to Spain, and they were officially late. I prayed fervently, my family prayed fervently, friends prayed fervently. No visa. What was once a miracle, the fact that the consulate made an exception and we were able to mail in our applications, was now the opposite of a miracle. Getting our visas early would have been a continuation of miracles. Getting them on time would be expected. But now they were late. What was God doing?
Last week in the midst of mentally processing the sad truth of our late visas, I got the hiccups again. Micah and I were going to get ice cream, and he and my family witnessed the loud, obnoxious hiccups as we were leaving. So as we walked out the door, I prayed out loud that the hiccups would go away.
They were gone instantly.
This is when I started to ponder. God still answers a silly, trivial prayer that I have. And He answers it immediately. But yet a serious, life-altering prayer received nothing but silence. What is God trying to tell me?
Maybe He's reminding me how near He is. Maybe He's affirming that He always hears and always has the ability to respond.
Maybe the repetition of hiccups disappearing has made me more confident in my hiccup prayers, but I don't carry that same confidence in other prayer requests. Maybe I've started to subconsciously believe that He won't answer all my prayers, and the time has come when I don't get an answer.
I just got the hiccups again today. In all of these hiccups episodes already mentioned, I always had one unwritten rule. I had to wait until my hiccups got going before I prayed for them to go away. For some reason, I was holding back that full belief, that full trust. Without realizing it, I didn't think God could get rid of my hiccups until they got their rhythm going, until they officially became a case of the hiccups and not just a few lung spasms in a row. My radius of trust didn't extend to developing hiccups.
So this time, I finally asked God to take them away before they even officially started. I spoke aloud the word "Jesus" just to begin my prayer, and I already knew they were gone before I got another word out. I finished my prayer and then marveled at how the developing hiccups didn't continue; I didn't get another hiccup after I uttered the simple word "Jesus."
Maybe the pattern of disappearing hiccups is God showing me He wants to be invited into every small caveat of my life. Maybe it's about trusting Him completely. Maybe it's about finding those small areas in my life where I'm not truly trusting Him and surrendering those to Him too.
So here I am surrendering everything to Him. This time, I'll trust him completely.
