When you pray for a tomato.

The couch is cool supple leather beneath the length of my spine and I am able to fully stretch out and point my toes. I point one toe, then the next, feeling the stretch radiate through my hamstrings and into my hips. The room is dark, only escaping light from a scant centimeter around a paper shade that covers a small window in the basement. If only summer could be permanently escaped in a subterranean lair where you needn't come out except after dark to meet your friends.

I begin to imagine how to tell the story:

My day began yesterday when I failed my statistics exam. I studied exactly the same way that I did when I got 90%. I devoted exactly the same amount of hours to the craft that is "plugging and chugging" your way through formulas that only bored Greeks or uber geeks could fathom. I have foregone most of the summer festivities, I turn down birthday party invitations, pool party invitations, BBQ invitations, facetime requests, I don't return whatsapp messages or emails. All I do is take care of the most immediate need in front of me (normally the kids), the necessity for provision for their keep (my job) and peripheral jobs that aid their quality of life (cooking, vacuuming, cleaning, laundry, dishes, brushing and washing their hair). So when I got a whopping 35% for the exam I was more than heartbroken. I felt like the wind was knocked out of me. I had all the things that people have said about the American education system floating around in my head "oh you know in America they just give you a degree" (yes the education system is a lot different, and very forgiving, but you actually do more homework and participate more here), "American college is so easy anyone can do it" (actually yes anyone can get a liberal arts degree, the degrees that you can actually use that are worth their parchment that they are printed on are harder to get), "my cousin is so dumb and he got his engineering degree, just like that, anyone can do it". And there I was staring at my 35% when I began to get tunnel vision and feel panicky. I didn't have the words to speak. I was so flat, but in my spirit I was just praying.

The professor has four exams, comprising of 25% per exam towards the total mark. So I would have to get 78% in each subsequent exam in order to get a minimum grade of 70% (which is a C) to pass the class. We all know my big sob story, I didn't do maths in high school, I taught myself high school maths at home over a period of a year, before I did university level algebra and trig. I have gone on to do accounting, economics, computer science. So I just saw this stats class as another hurdle I would just have to face and overcome. Just more than anything, the words that kept racing through my mind were "you are so stupid", and "look how smart you are now, turns out you cant do everything that you think" or "maybe you should just give up, you have your associate of science degree, why try so hard, this is too difficult".

I phoned my dad. He said don't worry, it happens, worst case scenario, you do the class again. I felt a teensy bit better. He was correct, I could just do the class again, it would mess up my GPA, but that is the definition of learning, correct, where you take something you couldn't previously do, and learn how to do it. So what if I graduate a semester later. Its not going to hurt that much. I spoke to my brother, he said this had happened to him before, and not to worry, it shouldn't mess up my GPA, I could still correct it. He suggested I email my professor. I spoke to the IT guy, who is also my friend, as he sat there at work with me upgrading our computers, and he said to me, why not email your professor. Which I ultimately did. The IT guy also read to me the psalm where He says His love never fails, it never gives up, it never runs out. The Psalm spoke about being on a ship and experiencing the highest of high peaks as the ship was catapulted through the sea, and the spirit of God calming the water, and rescuing His people because they cried out to him and because He loves them.

So I just felt flat yesterday. I felt overwhelmed. I felt like I had gone 10 rounds with the world, and my arms were tired. My mind flittered over to tomorrow's lunch, what I would eat at work, feeling like I needed to prepare my food for the next day, and I took stock of what was left in my fridge at work and my fridge at home. I realized if I had a single tomato I could make a pimento cheese and baby spinach salad and I would be satisfied and satiated and enjoy my lunch. Eating is one of my most perfect pleasures. But I was so weary I couldn't leave the comfort of my car, step out of the AC into the heat, to face the stores, plus I had the girls with me, they too were exhausted from all the shenanigans of youth.

I know I didn't pray for a tomato. But it was a request in my spirit, it was something so private, my request never formed on my lips. My heart had been openly crying to the God of the heavens, who painted the sky, who suspended the clouds on a breeze, who knew how our skins would welcome the sun.

I turned onto my street at about 6pm last night. A blonde boy walked ahead with two grocery bags of something. I knew him as my friends' son. He said "My mom sent veggies from my Nan's garden. We have squash, cucumbers....And there is even a single tomato".

In the busyness of getting the kids in the house it didn't immediately strike me of what had exactly happened. As I poured over the contents of the bags, huge yellow squash, almost plastic and unreal looking in their perfection, it suddenly dawned on me, that I was staring at the physical manifestation of a silent request to my Abba Father. It sat there like a big fat red round reminder of everything that He has said. He hears everything. He is with you. He walks with you. He loves you. You are His beloved.

And He gave me my tomato.