Tongue-tied

Christian Century, Sept 25, 2002 by Lauren F. Winner

Still, I kept entreating God. Bring it on, I thought. Tongues tongues tongues. And I kept keeping my mouth closed.

Then I began to doubt.

This was a test--not of me, but of God. If he was who he said he was, if he was omnipotent and threefold, I would get my language. And if not, not. I sat on the couch and every second that ticked by took on great meaning. Never mind that the books I had read told me that sometimes people prayed for months before getting their prayer language. It all came down to this tongued litmus test. If God was real, if the New Testament was true, I would start to babble. Tongues, tongues, tongues, I thought. Tongues, tongues, tongues.

I looked at the clock and tapped my toes and thought that the whole Jesus story, not to mention Pentecost and the Holy Spirit, must be bunk.

Then grace swooped in. No, I didn't start to speak in tongues, but I did get up and walk around in a circle and open the curtains and look out the window. I had what Betty Friedan would have called a "click moment." I understood that the whole exercise had gone awry. I understood how backwards and crazy and false it was for me to make this a test of God--I had started out to pray about gratitude and I had quickly turned into an ingrate. And I understood that I ought not ask for a prayer language until I could ask without making it the test of my entire faith.

Lauren F. Winner recently coauthored Protestantism in America. This article is excerpted from her just published Girl Meets God' On the Path to a Spiritual Life. [c] 2002 Lauren Winner. Published by permission of Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, a division of Workman Publishing.