Last week I got to Facetime with my sister Katie and her 7-year-old daughter Emmy.

Emmy was home sick from school and it was a rare and blessed window for me to connect with them (time zones are hard). In my sister’s house, they’ve erected a prayer wall. Whenever they see or hear of a need, one of the family  members writes it down on a post-it and adds it to the wall.

Emmy asked me if I had anything she could “post-it” and I shared my big request with her: Travis and I were in the process of buying very expensive plane tickets. She put her artistic hands to work while Katie and I continued on in our conversation. A few topics later Katie was asking me what I wanted for my birthday. I told her it didn’t make much sense to send me anything since I will be traveling through Asia for most of the summer before I come home. I said I would gladly receive some salad dressing when I come home though – as it seems to be the most impossible thing to find in Taiwan.

As we were finishing our conversation Katie looked over at Emmy’s post-it project and chuckled. Her second note said “Help Rachel & Travis find salad dressing.”

We had a good laugh even though to Emmy it wasn’t a joke at all! In her eyes, it was a need and needs go to the prayer wall.

Recently we were reflecting on our relationships with our earthly fathers in my DTS class. If I could describe my dad in one word it would be intellectual. Though he denies it, he has some form of a photographic memory that is able to scan and download information at exorbitant and super-human rates. Bring up just about any topic in foreign relations, politics, or horticulture and you’ve tapped into a walking encyclopedia.

As a kid I remember trying to fight for his attention. He always had a book in one hand and the remote control in the other. He was so caught up in his learning that he rarely had time for my 5-year-old conversation topics. After awhile I just quit trying to talk to him because I never felt like I had anything interesting to say.

Our connection has grown leaps and bounds in the past years as my brain can somewhat engage on one of his levels. He even asks for my blonde opinion sometimes!

But I realized that this fear of being uninteresting has spilled into my relationship with God. I have to fight to believe He’s interested in my life. I rarely pray about small things because I picture Him tending to other more important things. I’m afraid to involve Him in my daily life because I can imagine He has a billion other things to do (like deal with poverty and ISIS and stuff).

But God’s not like that. Not at all.

Psalm 65 says “Blessed are those you choose and bring near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple.”

God says “I choose you Rachel – please come dwell with me in my house. Talk to me! Tell me what’s going on in your heart. Tell me what you’re afraid of. Tell me what you’re excited about. I want to spend time with you – all the time in the world.”

I think my niece Emmy gets it. One of the things I love about her is that she never believes she’s a burden to anyone. When Katie switched jobs a few years ago Emmy exclaimed “this means you get to spend more time with me!” in a way that implied Katie was an incredibly blessed woman. (We love Emmy, we do – her enthusiasm can drain at times).

God wants to know what you need – even what you want. Better to pray for salad dressing than to not pray for it – who knows! We serve a creative God who delights in His kids.