Sweet Lord.

Dear Lord,

Please help me. Please, please help me. I know that you have been busy - terribly busy. You've had that whole election thing goin' down in Pennsylvania and if I know you at all I figure your probably still pretty hacked that Micheal Jon's got voted off American Idol. (I know I still can't move past it.) But I really need some help here. And I know I don't need to tell you about it but I would feel much better if I could just get it off my chest.

1. Tomorrow at noon my semester of Systematic Theology ends. Finally. Man! Talk about your 40 years in the wilderness. I've been stumbling around in that dry, barren land for-ev-er. But finally there is light at the end of the tunnel. In about 15 minutes from now I will turn in my 18 page paper on Miracles: Our Past, Our Present, Our Participation, I will finish up one last test, turn in my last 10 definitions and call it quits. And I won't shed one tear. So here's what I need from you...I really need to pass this course. Really. Badly. I need you to take a paper that, let's be honest, is probably sub-par at best, and turn it into wine. C'mon - do what you do best. There is a reason I wrote on Miracles, after all. I could really use one.

2. My cousin Meridith (silly me. You know who she is, no need to remind you.) flys in tomorrow. My house looks like I have been providing temporary housing for infidels. Considering she flys in at noon and I'm going to be up until midnight finishing school I am not exactly sure when I'm supposed to clean it. So remember that one time when you stopped time or you made the sun go back down or whatever so some army could win or something like that, well could you do it again so I could get these dadgum spots up off my carpet? Thanks.

3. I have some ground beef that has been sitting in my fridge for many, many days. Can you make it not make us all sick? Cuz I really need to make dinner for my cousin Meridith and if she dies on the very first day of her visit that would be a real bummer.

4. Okay, Lord, get out your notebook cause I'd like you to take notes on this one. Tomorrow night is the Dove Awards and I am doing my good, wifely duty and going. Even though you and I know I really, really don't want to. But it's important to the AG that I be there to support him and his artists' and so I'll do it. (Plus he promised to pull through and buy me an one of those new RootBeer floats from Arby's afterwards). One of my girlfriends asked me if the reason I dread going is that awards shows can be a bit, well, offputting - let's just say - and they aren't always filled with most genuine people and sometimes you feel like you just want to scream "BE REAL, PEOPLE!" But that's not the reason at all. In fact, I have met some really wonderful people in my husband's industry and tomorrow night I hope I get to sit by both of them. But my reason goes deeper than all of that. You see Lord, I have fat arms. Really fat arms. Arms that you try to hide but no matter what you drape over them they just keep coming back - fatter and whiter. So Lord, in all your sweet mercy help me find something to cover these things that hang from my shoulders and look like small children carrying home jugs of milk. Please Lord. If you do I promise you that I will clap for every person that wins even if it's some of these newfangled contemporary singers and not 4HYMN.

5. And last but not least, when Meridith gets in to town and I hug her neck and then head straight out the door for the Dove Awards please make her feel comfortable in this strange town, and this strange house all by herself. Let her enjoy the taco meat and live to tell about it. Let her feel at rest. At peace. And don't let me forget to tell her I need her to watch Remi for us all night.

Thanks.
Melissa