Jesus Doesn't Answer Prayers Written on Bathroom Stalls

Scratched into the paint on the outside-facing door of the tan bathroom stall in God-forsaken Arkansas were the following words:

Jesus doesn't answer prayers written on bathroom stalls.

As I stood there exhausted and about to wet myself waiting for the two chatty-kathys currently occupying said stalls, I pondered that statement.

The others surrounding it were less thought provoking. While someone might be interested that "Sumner wuz here" or that "Jill will love Kevin 4eva!" or that "Team Jacob is the Best EVA!!!!! :)", I found those remarks less provocative than "Jesus doesn't answer prayers written on bathroom stalls."
)
My first thought was that it would be the best country song ever. Can't you hear the weeping steel guitars and the sultry country singer discussing how she had prayed that her man be true and wrote in on the bathroom stall and "then he broke my heaaarrrrttt because Jesus don't answer prayers written on the bathrooooooom staaaaaaaaaaallll!"

Instant classic.

But, the statement lingered on me. People tend to bargain with God. I *cough* wouldn't *cough* know, but statements like "I will read my Bible every day for a bazillion years if you..." are pretty common. But, I don't think that the statement "If I write this on a bathroom stall, God, you will HAVE TO honor it" is that common.

I know what I was praying for at that moment. I was driving from OKC to Nashville to go home for the holidays, and I stopped in Little Rock for a nice americano and, while stopped, grabbed a Diet Coke and a water for good measure. I had just finished drinking those when all traffic stopped. And stayed that way for two hours.

Non-ideal.

My bladder was not happy with me. I prayed for strength in my loins. Please don't make me go into the details of the discomfort. You have had to go really bad before. Please draw from personal experience and insert that narrative here:


Thank you for your story.

Anywho, I finally make it past the blockage and there are no exits for a bajillion and a half miles (Hyperbole is the BEST thing EVER). I pull off the interstate, drive to the nearest gas station, fly out of my car, run to the bathroom, and find it full of two women who are taking their fine and dandy time doing their business.

I was so judging them.

But I was also reading the wall of the stall trying to stall my bladder from relinquishing my bodily fluids. Trying not to think of urination, the sound of which was already trickling out of the stalls as the two ladies continued to take their sweet time, I read the walls.

This is actually one of my defense mechanisms. I read. And I will read anything. ANYTHING. For instance, if I am in the bathroom, I read the labels of everything--pills, toiletries, you name it, I read it--and since I am usually nervous in, oh, EVERY social situation, I sometimes will be over at your house and then go into your bathroom and read the labels on your toiletries.

That's not normal, is it?

Anyway, I read this line and I am suddenly transported through a list of my most desperate prayers growing up.

Please give me a friend.
Please let me die.
Please help me stop daydreaming all the time.
Please make me thin and beautiful like my sisters.
Please make my head stop hurting.
Please make me less of a total fucked-up failure.

None of these would I ever write on a bathroom stall (though I did write them in code on the bunk bed boards). I searched for the prayer--there was a lot of writing. I couldn't find it. Many things had been scratched off or written over.

Or maybe the girl who wrote that had asked for prayer on a different bathroom stall and then God did not answer her in the way she wanted so she went around stalls bitterly ensuring that no one ever thought that God would answer prayers thus delivered.

The women got out of the stall AND PROCEEDED TO STRIKE UP A CONVERSATION WITH ME. Finally, I relieved my bladder and all was well.

Except it wasn't.

What was the prayer request? Who was this person? What was going on in her life?

On the remaining 7 hours of my trip, I pondered this. I will never know, but I will prayer for this person and their request that she just had to tell people about so much so she wrote in on a bathroom stall.

It is 2:07. My plan leaves in five hours. I have to leave my house in three and a half hours. I drove for a grand total of 14 hours today. I should sleep for my brain is fried.

But I can't help being somewhat haunted by the thoughts of my dear desperate friend who is so angered at God and his bathroom stall policy.

What was that prayer request? I am dying to know. What impulse grows inside you to bear your soul on the wall of a dingy, tan bathroom in the middle of nowhere?

I just have to know.

So, what would inspire you to write on a prayer request on a bathroom stall?