Pink Elephants: Hurt - Stories Between - Hope

teller.

There are some things I miss about my two daughters being small, and some things I don’t. What I don’t miss, is this thing called colic that makes babies cry all day and night, without an off switch. It seemed like the only way to get them to stop, was to duct tape them into their car seats, and drive around the block about 543 times.

I don’t miss the smell of poopy diapers, or changing them in the middle of the night. (Oh wait, that...was my wife, but I bet she doesn’t miss it either.)

I don’t miss going into debt, over throwing birthday parties for one year olds, who will never remember a thing you did. You know the ones, where they don’t even know how to eat chocolate cake yet? So, you accidently press the whole cake to their toothless chops, to get the best shot for Facebook. (We did that, and even put the chocolate messy picture on a t-shirt, because there was no Facebook back then.) After 21 years, I’ve still got that faded shirt, and it fits me like a glove...a very, very tight glove.

But what I do miss is I always felt I was needed. I loved the gooey feelings of them falling asleep on my shoulders, drooling on my best t-shirts. I missed tossing them on my shoulders and trotting around the living room pretending to be a horse, (Sorry: Horsey.)

But, I think the thing I miss the most is praying for, and with, my kids. I still always pray with and for them, but it was different back then. It seemed more real and unrehearsed.

I loved hearing my two-foot-high girls, pray for anything and everything. Their prayers had no limits and no logic. Their prayers came with no borders or boundaries. If their noggins could think it, they would pray it. I encouraged them to pray big and small, confirming God hears it all. (Although reminding them: hearing it all is different than answering it all as we wish.) Kneeling beside her bed, my daughter occasionally asked, Can God do anything?

Of course for this one, I had no need to consult the heavens or a TV preacher.

Yes he can, honey.

Are you sure?

Yes honey. I’m not only your dad, I’m a pastor, and pastors know about this type of thing. This was like knocking in a one-inch putt, easy peasy, a gimmie. This was an open layup in an empty gym.

Okay dad. I would like to pray the devil can get saved.

What?!?

Yes, I think he needs to be saved, daddy! I heard he’s a pretty bad guy. He really, really, needs God. Can God do that, can God save the devil?

I tried to give her a theological explanation how that probably ain’t going to happen, even if a certain place does freeze over. She was looking at me.

Yes or no, dad?

Well honey...umm...ahh...it’s getting late. Good night.

I remembered that she really believed anything was possible. She really didn’t know a lot about God, but she knew a lot about me. If I said God could, or would do something, she would believe it just because I was her dad. She would pray for cats, horses, and large circus animals for Christmas.

Why of course mommy and daddy can buy you an elephant for Christmas!

Oh wait...you want a pink one? Sure honey! Let me call my buddy from Barnum and Bailey Circus, and see if they have a spare elephant they could ship overnight to a four-year-old.

No joke. She would have no problem praying for horseys, rhinos and pink elephants: real ones. If you can think it, pray it. That’s what I miss about my girls being small. I miss bedtime prayers that were as big as pink elephants. I miss hearing what a genuine unrehearsed prayer is. Jesus agrees. He said, Blessed are the kids, who pray for pink elephants, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

Funny, kids never read any books or take gobs of classes, on how to pray like Jesus. They just do. They believe anything is possible. Even saving the devil.

Kids believe everything is possible, until we, or life tells them differently.

I think it’s only when we teach kids to pray in the real world, that they may lose a little of the imagination to pray for pink elephants in bedrooms.

God is big, but not that big. We try to protect our kids from God’s unexplainable vetoes. We caution them, to shrink their prayers to praying for goldfish, to save them from disappointment in case God can’t afford pink elephants, or doesn’t have friends in the circus.

When I was her age I prayed, God is great. God is good. Thanks for da food. Amen. I prayed, Now I lay me down to sleep, pray my soul to keep, making sure no pink elephants escape the circus. You don’t need God for a goldfish in a clear bowl. They’re just five bucks. But, a FedEx Pink Elephant?, that will take some help and a really big box. Not to mention the postage. Yikes.

Many times when I pray now, I pretty much know what God can and can’t, or won’t do. Let’s not push our luck praying for things too big to fit under a Christmas tree.

I, like scores of others, have been so disappointed by God’s selection of what prayers He answers and doesn’t. So, most of the time, it’s just safer to pray for goldfish. Tamed prayers are easier on my heart. Praying for things I can get for five bucks with or without a God credit card. I pray for healing, but brace for a funeral, just in case. I pray to walk on water, but plug my nose, knowing nobody does that these days. I pray for Pink Elephants, yet settle for a five-dollar goldfish in a glass bowl, like God’s on a budget.

I’m 54 and crave a 4-year olds prayer life, without limits or logic. I want to pray big without boundaries and borders. I want to pray for Pink Elephants. Really, really big ones. I really do believe in my head, God can swipe a few of those big-eared critters from under the Big Top. Now, I just have to get my heart to buy into what my lips are saying.

Well I got my wish a few days ago. I have been walking the streets, of the places I have lived in and visited for over 25 years. Not a real big deal, just praying for folks, and pitching a few bucks into the paper cups of people who never got Pink Elephants for Christmas. I have never felt like a strong preacher-type wanting my own TV show. (Although, I would like to be a DJ on an 80’s station, or a greeter at Walmart.)

Anyway, I like walking the streets, listening to people tell their side of the story to a stranger. I have found walking the streets, strangers tell strangers things they would never tell their family or friends. Weird, I know.

A friend of mine from high school, recently read my first book, and said it helped her out a bit. I told her I had been walking across the U.S., listening to strangers, and giving them free books and free meals. She asked me if I ever run into her missing daughter, who she hasn’t seen in years, to tell her that she loves her.

I said that I would. It was pretty easy. I said, I will, knowing I never would bump into her.

I prayed for them both and moved on.

The longer her story soaked in my soul, the more it hurt. After about a week, I felt God invite me to go on a treasure hunt looking for this lady’s daughter. The mom gave me a few addresses in the Detroit area, where she was rumored to be, and an old picture.

Instead of saying, Heck yeah, God, let’s do this thing, I first looked up the population of the Detroit area. Then common sense whispered: There is no way you will find a girl you never met. Of course the twins Limits and Logic tossed their two cents in. This is a million to one long shot, and a waste of time.

I hear this story all the time, about boys and girls leaving moms and dads.

I always try to pray for both sides of the split. But God seldom asks me to go hunting for either one. I reason it’s safer to just pray from the comfort of my own couch. This assignment was so much bigger than me and my God is great, God is good prayers. The Twins say, No offence God, but this is kind of crazy, there is no way I will find an Elephant in a haystack, even if it is pink.

After enlightening God, on the odds of this happening being zero to none, I said:

If you want me to. I tried to drag out some of that childlike faith the Bible brags, about where all things are possible. A mammoth faith, where pink elephants trump goldfish. God, give me the faith of a 4-year-old. Kids don’t look at reason, or consult Vegas for the odds. Invite a kid to search for one in a million, their only question is, Will you buy me ice cream if I go with ya?

After I agreed to going on this safari, looking for Pink Elephants in Detroit, I started to get really excited. I got out my Detroit hoodie, Detroit jacket, and Detroit ball cap.

(Okay...I wear that every day, but I felt it couldn’t hurt. A high school buddy of mine asked my wife at church one Sunday, Does your husband even have Detroit Tigers underwear? She took the fifth, and so will I.)

I told my teenage daughter Morgan, the assignment and the odds. She wrote a little note to me:Good luck Dad, Love you! Praying for you, Morg. My teenage daughter knew the odds, and said as I was leaving, If God wants you to find her, you will find her. I stowed away her note in my pocket before I left. I called the mom before leaving, and she texted me one more photo. She told me to get her daughter whatever she wanted, with a million-dollar limit. Tell her I love her.

I agreed. (To the I love you message, not the million-dollar part.)

I grabbed a gallon of McDonald’s Coke and drove West on I-94 towards the D, looking for one missing pink elephant. I was so excited to find her, and pass on a mom’s three-word memo and a free shopping spree. The closer I got, I began to rehearse what I was going to say when I found her.

Hello my name is Dennis, I went to high school with your mom…

Hello! You want a million-dollar shopping gift card and a free book on Ketchup?

I think I’ll go with the first one.

For once, I really believed more in God than Vegas.

My faith was tilting more towards pink than gold, yee hah!

I got there, and it was pouring rain. A little frustrated I prayed, God, how will I find her in a storm? I kindly asked Him if he would turn off the faucet, thinking it would make His job a little easier. That’s me, always thinking of others. If it stopped raining, then maybe she would go out for a walk to the store, McDonald’s, a gas station, and I would spot her. Boom! Life, Happily ever after. But either way, I’m in with my new mantra: Pink trumps gold.

I finally found the area, after asking only 12 and a half strangers and police for directions. Then I got to the address given to me. Let’s say it was in a challenging neighborhood. There were as many bars on church windows, as on the corners. Graffiti tagged anything and everything, telling folks who’s the boss. Every other house was burnt, but not bulldozed. Fast food is ordered through a plexiglass, speaking into a mic. Your order gets put in this circle thing like a mini merry-go-round, twisting it around to customers. Large vacant businesses line the streets like ghosts, as a reminder back to a day when Detroit was the place to be, not flee.

I met some beautiful people, who are trying to make things better by not moving out, but by moving in. They are crazy pink elephant praying people. The graffiti, gangs, burnt and boarded buildings, are all magnets pulling them and their dreams in.

They believe all things are possible. They have no time for the twins, Limits and Logic, and the odds of Vegas. All they see are pink elephants everywhere.

I drove the streets for a few hours and saw no pink elephants anywhere, (at least the one that looked like my photo). I stopped at a sub place, and bought a few to pass out to some of the people I had passed a hundred times now.

I stopped at one corner, and a lady yelled at my closed window.

HELP ME!

She was about four foot two and weighed less than an ashtray. There was a brown rosary draped around her thin neck, scratching it like a lottery ticket. Her blondish hair was sopping wet from a day under heaven’s faucet. She had on wet bellbottom blue jeans, trying to hide her muddy white-ish sneakers. She had a sign, but the rain melted away her magic marker request. I couldn’t read her sign, but I recognized her story.

I pulled over and rolled down the window. She slid over and her opening line was: You know what the Bible says, right?

I was thinking, Umm..About what?

I knew if I didn’t talk, she would. She then quoted without chapter and verse,

"The Bible says you have to ask to receive. If you don’t ask, you won’t receive.

So hey man, I am asking."

Then she smiled, exposing five teeth holding onto her gums for dear life.

Pretty good street logic, I must say. She then asked for anything to help her get something. She put her sign up towards my nose, telling me what the melted marker couldn’t. She said, I need some help for my mom. She is sick.

I smiled back and said, I would love to help. I passed on a sub and cash to help validate her Bible verse and help her mom.

I know some of you street savvy just whispered to yourselves, Dennis, you just got played.

How can you be sure her mom was really sick?

What if she is rich, pretending to be poor?

What if she spends that money on a date with the devil?

You could be right. But I would say that I have no clue if her mom is sick, who she dates, or if she’s playing me. If her mom isn’t sick, that’s good news.

If she’s some B- actor pretending to be poor, then she deserves an Emmy...or at least a turkey sub.

I continued to cruise from morning to night, looking for a mom’s daughter.

I looked around and in abandoned buildings, alleys, stores, gas stations, and coffee shops with no luck. Now my childlike faith was starting to grow up, thinking maybe Vegas was right: the odds are too big, even for God.

Maybe I should have stuck to praying for a five-dollar gold fish.

My a.m. excitement is twisting into p.m. frustration. It’s senseless to be driving around the D, looking for one pink elephant, when the twins brag the circus has left town a long time ago.

God, why would you invite me to plunge around in burnt buildings, and barred churches, just to strike out?

In everyday life, I lose my keys and pray to find them. There they are, in my front right pocket. I pray for a bill to be paid, and a check shows up (sometimes). I pray for a missing girl and get nothing but subs to give a stranger, scuffing up a brown rosary and quoting the Bible for cash.

Trying to feed my faith, I kept vowing, I’ll go another hour, God, but nothing.

Okay God, I will give you one last shot at finding her. This time I really mean it.

But nothing.

I stopped at one last gas station hoping to see her in there, but nothing.

I bought a tall can of Diet Coke and a yellow bag of Sugar Babies for dinner and headed home. That night, driving East on I-94, looked more like a parking lot than a freeway. I was stuck staring ahead at the dozens of red taillights staring back at me. The rain continued to pounce on my windshield, with no sign of throwing in the towel.

Then I started to cry out asking, God, should I have turned right when I turned left? Should I have cruised town one more time? I started to think of all the herds of pink elephants roaming around, without anyone looking for them. People who once had dreams, bigger than goldfish, now just happy to eat a sub from a stranger in the rain. Once believed the verse Ask God and you will receive…

Now: Betting on a rosary in the rain.

The red lights ahead started to move east, and so did I.

I now knew I had to call the mom, who thought her three-word love letter would have been delivered by now. I had been praying for her and thousands of other missing pink elephants, all day long. I prayed for the brave souls, who are moving into a city that most are moving out of. I prayed they would find a girl, and offer her what a million-dollar gift card can’t: hope.

I don’t know why the mom and daughter separated. I didn’t ask.

I have been doing this job long enough, to know sometimes things break, sometimes elephants escape. Sometimes things just get off track. Today’s mission was not trying to figure out who’s right and who’s wrong. Today I’m not a psychologist or a preacher. I’m just a mailman. I wanted to deliver a three-word message: I love you. Letting a hurting girl know a hurting mom misses her.

I wasn’t sure how to process the day. Yes, I wished it had a different ending. But that day, for the first time in a long time, I left my five buck faith, looking for a pink elephant. Left my God is great, God is good prayers, to visit a community where many think He is neither. I talked with romantics, moving into ghost towns versus moving out.

I met a few folks, who really believed Vegas had nothing on Detroit or God.

I prayed with the foolish freedom of a 4-year-old: if you can think it, pray it. (Remembering praying for everything is different than getting everything you wish for.)

I didn’t save Detroit or the devil that day, but I did see the many people he has converted into thinking: No pink elephants for you. I met several people, who felt their past has disqualified them for praying for 15,000 pound Christmas gifts. People whose dreams have sunk down to a five buck fish in a glass bowl.

Did I feel like a fool driving around the D looking for an elephant in a haystack?

Yep, I sure did. But, it also felt good unleashing the prayers of a 4-year-old.

I really felt this urban safari was going to end with a trophy catch. I just wanted to tell the mom her girl is okay. I wish I could have found that pink elephant. It seems like a much better ending to this story, than crying on I-94 East, snacking on Diet Coke and Sugar Babies for dinner.

I called the mom and had to tell her I didn’t find her daughter. I didn’t get a chance to give her, her mom’s three-word memo and shopping spree. The mom said she really appreciated someone looking for her girl.

I’m still a bit confused, as to why God would have me spend a day looking, knowing I would come home with only a sugar buzz from Diet Coke and candy.

Trying to redeem the day, could it be that God bumped me down I-94 West, to deliver a sub and smile to someone else’s pink elephant? I keep trying to make sense of what God has chosen to stay silent on. All I can say is: I did it.

I went looking for one in a million. I know if it were my daughter, it would bring me some peace to know someone was looking for her, even if the twins were calling them a fool.

As I finish this story, I’m trying to think like a 4-year-old, not 54.

If a 4-year-old doesn’t get a 15,000-pound pink thing with big ears under the tree, they just reload saying, Hey dad! My birthday is coming up in 2 months…

If not then, Hey dad! The 4th of July is right around the corner, wink, wink.

If your circus friend hooks you up with an elephant by the 4th of July, I’ll take a red, white, and blue one please.

Yep, let me call my buddy at the Big Top right now.

I don’t want a prayer life, that only prays for five-dollar goldfish in a clear bowl.

I don’t want a prayer life that always confers with twins, living in Vegas before God.

I want a prayer life that will pray for pink elephants in Detroit.

For one day, I prayed believing God can do anything.

For one day, I prayed like a 4-year-old.

For one day, I prayed for pink elephants.

You say: But Dennis...you struck out…

The 54-year-old in me agrees.

But the 4-year-old in me says: Yeah, but the 4th of July, is just around the corner, wink, wink.

I don’t miss crying babies duct taped in the back seat. I don’t miss poopy diapers at 2 a.m. or 2 p.m., nor does my wife. I don’t miss spending my 401 K (if I had one) on birthday parties that won’t be remembered without a snug-fitting t-shirt.

Well...I do miss the chocolate cake. I like chocolate cake

I won’t miss pulling hamstrings pretending to be a horsey.

But I do miss hearing what real prayer is, before someone teaches us what real prayer is. I do miss the 4-year-old praying for 15,000-pound pink things, that can’t fit in a fishbowl. Maybe God will take pity on my prayer life, and coach me to pray more like a 4-year-old, rather than a 54-year-old with way too many goldfish.

The first day I met Winnie, I noticed her high hair more than her. Her age was in the 70’s, her hairstyle in the 50’s. She walked into our church, shy, quiet and courteous. Apart from her hairdo, nothing really stood out about her. She camped out in the second row, on the right side, for the next five years. She was pretty docile, except for the one time a stranger tried to call dibs on her seat, and her claws came out.

Just kidding...kinda…

I do remember her first Sunday’s exit speech, and yes, it was a speech. Winnie loved to talk. (If you called her, you’d better have a few vacation days saved up, ‘cause you ain’t going anywhere.) She looked at me with tears in her eyes and told me, YOU ARE AWESOME, and my sermon was, The best she ever heard.

That can plump up a pastor’s ego rather quickly. Trust me. As a pastor, I get called a lot of names, but AWESOME, usually is not one of them. Very few say, this is The best sermon they ever heard. She went on and on about the difference the service made in her life. I thought, Lady, I don’t know who you are, but you are for sure welcomed back next Sunday. I think she reminded me of my mom, who passed away years earlier. My mom too, thought I was AWESOME. (Well, some days she thought I was awesome, and some days it was, DENNIS, wait till your father gets home!)

She continued her monologue, telling me about her husband Ernie, who died years ago. The love gushed out of her, like he was standing right next to her. She, like many widows, had memorized the day of her beloved’s death. She could tell you how many years, months, days, hours, and seconds it had been since her love was stolen from her. Almost every time she talked, she slipped in Ernie’s name as a tribute to his love and legacy. I think she felt, if she stopped saying his name daily, he would vanish. It’s one thing to lose your man, but another, to lose his memory. She told me how lonely she was, and how much it costs to move on, and to live in the past. She couldn’t afford either, but lived in the tension of both.

Weekly she said I was, The best pastor she knew. I was thinking, ‘I’m the only pastor she knows.’ She added, All those fancy TV preachers have nothing on you. Well, they do dress better than you. But, most people do.

I agreed. Very few pastors, wear Detroit Tigers sport gear each Sunday as standard equipment. Wait, I think I did dress up one Sunday. No, never mind. That was for a wedding.

Each Sunday, Winnie would come in and pile praises on me, like manure on a garden. The more she spread it, the taller my self-confidence grew. She was an inch away from sending my name across the pond to the Vatican, to be the next pope.

I graciously turned down her, holy bid, due to the fact I don’t look good in outfits that are all white.

(Well...there was this one phase in my life, in the 70’s, where I thought I was John Travolta. I bought a white suit, platform shoes, half-buttoned silk shirt, buckets of cologne, and was drawn to pointing at disco balls on Saturday nights, but I’m kind of past that now.)

I’m fully aware, that no pastor can do awesome sermons every week, no one. You are going to have some, that flat out stink. After some of those, less than pope-like sermons, dressed in my Tigers jersey, people would say the darndest things.

Rolling their eyes, So, did you go to school for this preaching thing?

It was those mornings my four eyes would begin to scan the room, looking for Winnie and her high hair. If a hundred people said my sermon reeked like manure, I knew Winnie would say it smelled like roses, or so I hoped.

Sure enough, Winnie would walk up bawling.

"Dennis, I don’t care what anyone says. You are the best pastor in the world.

This sermon is the best I ever heard. Thank you, thank you so much."

My ego questioned, Better than last week?

Yes, much better.

She would tell everyone she met to come to her church.

But we have our own church.

Yes, but it’s not as good as mine. Just try it, and you will never go back to your church.

I coached her. Winnie, you can’t do that. Some pastors don’t play that sheep stealing game. They have their own church.

I don’t care. They got the wrong church, someone has to tell them.

Some stranger would walk up to me and ask, Do you have a lady in your church named Winnie?

Yep…sorry about that.

I know everybody can’t have a church full of Winnies, but we all deserve at least one. One person, who can only see the best, when the world only sees the worst. One person, who fights for your reputation, even when you’re out of the room. Once, Winnie came into church all jacked up. She stomped up to me and said, I met a person from your past, and they told me I probably shouldn’t go to this church because of you. Then they tattled on my past transgressions, in detail. As Mr. T used to say, I pity the fool, who messes with Winnie’s pastor. She lit that man up, and his outdated accusations, by calling him a liar, and telling him that he needs to come to church and repent.

I told her, Winnie, not everyone likes me, or this church.

Nope. she wasn’t buying any of what I was selling. You’re lying, Dennis. Everybody likes you. Trust me, I tried to tell her all the bad things I had done, and she would just smile and say, Stop it. I don’t believe a word of it. Dennis, how could someone not love you?

Let me count thy ways.

Winnie would always try convincing my two teenage girls, as to how lucky they were, to have such a heavenly father like me. She would approach my girls, What is it like to live with a man so wonderful and Godly? What is it like to have a dad so awesome, who does nothing wrong? You girls have to be so grateful and blessed, to live in the same house with him.

At that point, my two girls would roll their eyes and want to vomit, saying to my wife, Mom, Winnie did it again. Going on and on about dad. Tell her to stop.

I corrected her. Trust me, Winnie my girls don’t see me like you do. Nobody does. Winnie would just keep telling my teenagers, How Great Thou Art. Yep, that’s what all teenagers want to hear about their perfect father, soon to be the first pope who loves disco...woot, woot. So, a note to my church: I’ll be trading my Detroit Tigers cap for one of the tall white ones soon.

After a few