Birgitta loves to read and always has. Because of that, she’s hoping her little Emerald will turn into a reader, too. Although she’s only 12 months, she already has her own bookshelf in our “library,” thanks to Louisa’s “bring-a-book” baby shower. (A Word or Two)

Emerald loves to handle her books and turns their stiff pages with expertise. She knows how to feel the “furry” or “nobby” pages and how to scratch open the peek-a-boo panels on pages with hidden surprises. Today while she was “reading,” though, I noticed something interesting.

Though she had handled a dozen books and was sitting amongst them, the one she kept returning to was a grown-up book she’d pulled from a different shelf. It was a dusty old reference book I’d used in my writing (before PCs and the internet) titled “20,000 WORDS SPELLED AND DIVIDED FOR QUICK REFERENCE.”

Trying to figure out what she liked about this bland book, I experimented with her.

Four different times I coaxed her into one of her toddler books, but each time she’d eventually brush it aside to hunt for “20,000 WORDS,” the book with no pictures or touchy-feely pages. Then she’d carefully finger it with intense concentration.

Maybe today, looking wasn’t as important as feeling.

It reminded me of the way God sometimes works behind the scenes on us. We think he wants us to look at a certain situation with an eye to fixing it, when really what he wants is for us to feel it, not with our hands but in our hearts.

For example, we might read about a family in chaos where the children are being neglected, and we immediately want to do something to right the wrongs. But it’s possible God doesn’t want us to jump in like that. Maybe he wants our hearts to feel such a potent ache that it drives us to prayer for the family rather than trying to fix things. Maybe he wants us behind the scenes requesting that he work wonders amidst the chaos.

So often we think we need to do something, when in reality praying is doing. It’s doing the most powerful, most effective thing possible. The fact that prayer is mostly done in secret and that no one knows about it except God, sometimes makes it more difficult to do. But may we never think that pouring our hearts out to God on someone else’s behalf isn’t as good as accomplishing something visible for them.

As for Emerald, a few years from now she’ll be able to understand those 20,000 words and probably read them, too. When she does, I hope she’ll use them to talk to God in prayer.

“When you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you.” (Matthew 6:6)