Learning to Meow
The Silly Way God Answered a Stranger's Prayer
If you've ever had a stranger offer to pray for you, you know it's something akin to when a genie appears out of a lamp, offering you a wish.
God hears our own prayers, For Sure!
And we can, and should be asking him to look upon our aches and longings!
But when he hears about them from someone else?! That's next level.
The Lord loves a team effort, loves for people to play the Mediator, loves it when we 'bear one another's burdens'.
He is gonna pay special attention to those prayers.
So last week, a woman that I've never met, never conversed with- whose name I had never even heard before, did an outrageously faithful thing. In an online Writer's community of no less than 2,405 members, she offered to pray for everyone who asked.
She had blocked off her Sunday, and would devote the hours to praying for us, one name, one heart cry at a time. She said we needed only to share our requests with her before the time, and by Sunday night, we should consider it brought before the Father.
What a love!
The requests began to pour in right away. I wasted no time in adding my name to the pile. There were a million things I could think to ask for!
But unlike with vacation plans, or restaurant menu selections, or the choice of the next workplace or neighborhood, with Prayer, there is no "FOMO".
“So I say to you, keep asking, and it will be given to you. Keep searching, and you will find. Keep knocking, and the door will be opened to you.
Luke 11:9
Whatever this angel of a woman didn’t ask for for me, I had every freedom to just nag God for myself! With Abundance framing my thoughts, I easily landed on the most practical "wish"- the thing that would help me to most transform my relationships here in my current corner of the globe. I asked for "Traction" in my Mandarin language studies.
Though I have been trying to wrestle the sounds and rhythm of Chinese speech into my mouth for the past half year, I haven't yet adapted a fluency.
The prideful pitfall that always keeps me Stuck is that I'm 'All or Nothing’.
'Go Big, or Stay Home.'
I refuse to dip even one toe in the water if I don't think I'm already equipped to dive into the deep end.
And that innate folly is exactly the reason that I have utterly failed to speak ANY Chinese with my Housekeeping Staff in all the time I've been here. I have dabbled with the Dining Room Servers, the Bartenders and the Front Desk Agents- because they can also communicate in English. In 5 months together, our friendships have become colorful and deeply trusting. But with my housekeepers, who speak only Chinese I have selfishly allowed things to stay shallow and superficial: 200 repetitions of a chipper, English “Good Morning!”, 200 repetitions of a sleepy, English “Good Night.”
So I asked for traction in my studies, with the end goal of breaking down barriers between the heart-of-house staff and me.
After I posted my comment, A second woman- another faithful stranger- entered the scene of the online house of prayer. She commented on the post where my prayer request was written, speaking power over my petition, that very hour:
"I pray, even today, Jesus, that Em will be able to speak to those who she has not been able to before.....Even today, let it begin, Jesus, Amen."
The prayers of these two women would be answered in the most adorable way.
My Chinese lesson the following day was unlike any I'd ever had before. Instead of repeating pinyin sounds until I wanted to cry, or being quizzed on bland collections of vocabulary words, that day, my Laoshi, (teacher) had in mind to make me a Pop Star a KTV Star.
The curriculum was simple: Two songs. The first, a well-known, bubblegum-pop song that tells the story of two young lovers, navigating the conflicts and high emotion of a powerful romance by following the trustworthy examples of a cat.
“Xué Māo Jiào” : Studying the ways of the Cat..... Learning to Meow.
There’s a music video-- The youthful girlfriend sings of her catlike behaviors and affections for her youthful boyfriend -- he feels just the same. He eventually dons some headwear that covers his face with the face of a cat, and they marry, no red flags in sight. Charming hand motions accompany the chorus.
The second song was a slow-as-molasses ballad, about a love as deep as the moon.
Though my teacher is petite, and young, at 22 years of age, she is as no-nonsense an instructor as I've ever encountered. She did not care how desperately I wanted to flee from her singing lesson that day. No. She rushed me through copying the lyrics into my notebook, took me through a quick breakdown of the songs' meanings, and then spent the remaining 1.5 hours conducting me and my classmate to sing the songs Over, and Over, and Over again.
Embarrassed, we would try and speed through the stanzas, willing her to give up on us and change the lesson plan. But she would pause the music, start at the top, and then reset our pace and tune until she was satisfied. When, with great relief, we reached the end of a song, her gentle, girlish voice would ring out, now emotionless and commanding: "Again."
The result of this painful discipline, was that by evening, when I returned to my ship, I had grown to adore these songs. They were a part of me now.
{ No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, for those who have been trained by it, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace.
Hebrews 12:11 }
When I gave an impromptu concert of “Xué Māo Jiào” to a colleague's little daughter and the dining room servers, mouths fell open. And then, playfully, many voices and hands joined in.
When I sang the first bars of the love song to my front desk agents, the girl who works in the gift shop quietly found her way to my side. We sang a soft, slow, lullaby duet together, swaying contentedly in the lobby.
The next night, one of the crew members invited us for a grand and unexpected dinner party onshore. She had announced her resignation, and in a true Hospitality style, she wanted to give everyone a feast to remember her by.
It was a precious evening. We celebrated our friend's new adventure and the bright future ahead of her. We ate and drank to our hearts' content. The peaceful ambience of the shared table provided the ideal chance to test my dusty Chinese words with the housekeepers and cooks slurping noodles beside me. Their expressions of delight and surprise at my pitiful attempts proved more delicious to me than the silky, savory sheets of bean curd simmering in the hotpot. I didn't mind at all the way they giggled at and gleefully corrected my mistakes. The walls were coming down.
When we returned to the ship that evening, two housekeepers who had to stay in, on-duty, were chatting with one of my favorite front desk agents. These were girls with whom I had exchanged three thousand dumb smiles, but had never spoken to. I paused and leaned with them against the counter, offering up yet another. My front desk friend told me to sing my slow love song for them. And so I pulled up the lyrics, and those two girls gathered around, and in an instant, three formerly mute housemates, were transformed into an accapella trio. The affection translated perfectly.
When we finished our song, we had no lack of things to say to each other. We weren’t the same colleagues we had been even that morning.
But since it was late, we lovingly said, ‘Good Night’; ‘Wǎn'ān’.
Ask and You shall receive.
And for good measure, Ask your praying friend to ask for you!
(I’m here for you Babes- I’ve got some P[r]aying Forward to do!)
And now, because I know you are dying to see it yourself, here is the official video of Meow Meow Meow ‘Xué Māo Jiào’. Click at your own risk- Once you see it, it can never be unseen.