Small enough to pray for

The 9 AM I prayed for

It was almost 11:00 on a Tuesday morning when we left Zora’s speech therapy appointment.

We’ve been through a few therapists at this point. The first one was great. Zora was warming up to her after a few appointments, and then she ended up leaving the practice. Here at the ripe age of 27, I’ve had my fair share of providers leaving at a time where I felt most comfortable, and was feeling a bit stung for my kid as my repressed feelings of medical neglect made their ways to the surface. Our second was the woman who’d done Zora’s initial speech assessment. Soft spoken, extremely kind, & Zora liked her, too. The only problem was her one available slot: 11:30. Smack in the middle of the day.

If you’re a mom, you already know what anything at 11:30 does to a day when your toddler is in tow.

You wake up and you live a whole life before your kid wakes up. Then, they wake up and you live a whole new one. By 11:30, we’re deep into the rhythm of the morning, heading towards a nap, and getting ready for lunch. An appointment at 11:30 means I either feed her before and she’s hungry after, or I don’t feed her and she’s cranky going in. Her nap gets disrupted, and the whole afternoon collapses.

I had to make a decision.

In this season of building real structure for our family, and in figuring out what actually works for us, I kept coming to the same place:

This doesn’t work for us, and we have the control to change it.

I went back to the practice and told them I was pausing appointments indefinitely. I was about to take Zo somewhere else, and that’s when the 9:00 AM appointment “opened up.”

A new therapist. An early slot.

Suddenly available.

I requested a reality check from my friends immediately. Did I just get played? Were they holding back appointments, or did something magically shift on their end?

Was the appointment there or did they just pop up? Is it coincidence or was they lying to me, cause I'm feeling lied to but I also have not taken my meds today, so chat let me know some.

— Text transcript from my board meeting group chat

Every time I started spiraling on the “magically,” I scolded myself a little. The why doesn’t matter—the 9:00 AM we needed was there. Miss T came out to greet us, & I knew.

I try not to judge a book by its cover, but I do judge it by its title sometimes.

A good title usually means the author put some thought into it. Her name told my nerves something before I could see it clearly, and the way she carried herself confirmed it. There aren’t many Black speech language pathologists in this field, helping kids with speech and developmental delays. Out of that handful, my daughter gets one. A young Black woman, probably around my age, who appears gentle and grounded. The kind of presence that softens you the second you walk into the room.

And I needed it, ngl. I was tense.

I was cautious going in. This was our third new face in a short stretch. Zora was extra cautious too. But Miss T being who she was let me exhale, & the second I exhaled, Zora did too. It took minutes for her to warm up. Miss T pulled out bubbles and the little animal color blocks Zora loves. They were doing work the whole time, even through the giggles and laughter while bubbles danced around. Zora waved goodbye on her own.

I prayed about this. When you’re new to God, you think He only handles the BIG things.

A cancer diagnosis, grief, a job loss. The kind of trouble and worry that brings a person to their knees as they skin them on the rough rock bottom. You don’t think to bring Him a calendar conflict. You don’t think the small things count.

Philippians 4:6-7 tells us, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

That verse does not classify every situation as catastrophic, life-altering events that makes believers beg for the wave of relief from God. He not only makes the waves, he makes the ripples, too. He makes the plops, the single droplets that become the waves. The 9:00 AM appointment is a ripple. Miss T is a ripple. Zora warming up in five minutes is a ripple. Me, not being tense during her appointment, is a ripple.

None of it would make the news. None of it would change the trajectory of someone else’s life, but it changed mine this morning. When I catch myself trying to explain it away, I have to stop and put the period where God already put it. The appointment is there. The therapist is good. Zo is safe and cared for. And that’s all that matters.

CJ doesn’t know about this change yet, even with him being a good partner & a good father. This piece is mine to carry. The therapist’s name change, the call back, the negotiation, the insurance updates, the gut check on whether this new person was the right fit for our daughter.

& if I’m honest? I want it to stay mine.

These are the decisions mothers make for our families every day. The ones that don’t make it into the dinner table recap. They are the line items I can’t list out when asked what’s on my plate, the mental work of holding the timing, the people, & the gut-check of a 30-minute window and what that can mean for my little family.

It is the work of advocating without anyone clocking that advocacy ever happened.

I am exhausted by the decisions I made before 9:00 AM that nobody else will ever know I made. But as it turns out, God is in those line items, too. He’s in the 9:00 AM slot. He’s in Miss T’s gentle greeting. He’s in the exhale of a toddler who finally feels safe, because she’s feeding off her mama, who has signaled safety to her with calming breaths.

It was a small thing to the world, but a holy thing to me.

I’m putting the period where He already put it. I am letting myself rest in the ripple.