Every September, parents are handed enough school forms to qualify for a minor position in the federal government. There are forms for transportation, allergies, technology, photographs, field trips, dismissal, and at least one document requiring you to swear that your child will not bring a live farm animal to school without written permission. Erin and I just completed this list for what feels like the hundredth time over the years.
Somewhere in the pile is the familiar question: Who should we contact in an emergency?
You write down the person most likely to answer the phone, remain reasonably calm, and know where your child is supposed to be. This eliminates several members of my family immediately.
For most of my life, I had plenty of emergency contacts. I knew lawyers, doctors, school leaders, elected officials, priests, and at least one person who could get a return phone call from nearly anyone on Long Island. I believed every problem had a person, and if I could find the right person, make the right call, and explain the situation using enough impressive words, I could fix almost anything.
If I am being honest, my primary emergency contact was me. Or Erin…but mostly me.
I trusted my judgment, my work ethic, and my ability to keep moving. I mistook being needed for being whole. I thought faith meant thanking God after I had successfully handled everything myself.
God was on the list, of course. I am not a complete heathen. But He was somewhere near the bottom, beneath “trusted colleague” and just above “break glass in case of apocalypse.”
Somewhere over the past few years, God began moving up the list. Not because I suddenly became holy or figured out how faith works. I simply started talking to Him before there was an emergency.
Prayer slowly became less like calling 911 and more like calling someone who actually knows me. I stopped bringing God only the impossible things and began bringing Him the ordinary ones—the worries that seemed silly, the moments that made me laugh, the people I was grateful for, and the questions I suspected He had no intention of answering on my preferred timeline.
I started speaking with Him while walking the dogs early in the morning, driving to work, sitting in church, holding a rosary, or wondering why the person ahead of me at 7-Eleven had chosen that exact moment to conduct a comprehensive investigation of every available lottery ticket.
I began telling God things He already knew.
I told Him when I was afraid. I told Him when I was angry. I told Him when I was grateful, although I was embarrassingly inconsistent about that one. Sometimes I prayed beautifully. Sometimes I repeated the same few words. Sometimes I sat there with nothing to say, which may have been significant personal growth for someone who once made a living speaking at meetings.
The biggest change in me is not that I finally understand God. I don’t. It is that I no longer save Him for emergencies.
He is there when life falls apart, but also in the coffee, the dog walk, the ride home, and the rare five minutes when nobody needs anything from me. I still worry. I still hand God detailed plans for improving my life. He still ignores most of my management suggestions. Apparently, I am not on the executive committee.
If that form asked today whom I trust when life goes sideways, I would still list the people I love. God often arrives through familiar voices and people who answer on the first ring.
But He is no longer at the bottom of my list.
God is not merely my emergency contact. He is the One I call on an ordinary weekday, when nothing is broken and nobody needs rescuing... because I finally understand that the best relationships are built before the emergency.
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