Last night Joey said to me, "I think it's your turn to pray tonight."

"OK," I said.  I prayed about his upcoming papers, the end of the semester and several other things before I moved on to my sunburn. 

"God...my sunburn hurts a lot and I'm getting really sick of it.  Please heal it quickly.  I really learned my lesson this time, I will never use expired sunblock again and I will always be more careful when going out in the sun because I hate being reddish-purple and hurting every time I move."

I stopped here and realized how whiny I was starting to sound.  There are Christians who are being persecuted for their faith right now and you're whining to God about your measly sunburn, I chastised myself.  I was starting to feel a little guilty for being so selfish.

"Thank you that I'm starting to feel a little better," I continued.  "And thank you that it's not worse.  I'm really looking forward to when you heal my skin enough that it starts to peel...although if it's really itchy you will probably hear from me again about this."

I finished my prayer up shortly and as soon as I was done Joey said, "You do realize that you just whined at God."

"I know..." I said, "But it's not like He wasn't aware that I was thinking whiny thoughts in my head.  I was just being honest."

So I realized two very important things last night:

• God actually does want to hear me when I'm whiny because He already knows my heart.  (I often tell myself not to bug God with little things like sunburns, but I need to remember that He cares!)
• I'm a wimp.  I don't like my sunburn and I'm quick to tell God that and I'm not even suffering anything major like some Christians are.  It reminds me to pray for them, actually, which is why I'm putting a posty-note on my monitor about that very thing right now.