Emma and the Moon's Answer
Emma watches the moon from her window and asks: "How does prayer reach the right person back?"
The moon is quiet for a moment, the way old things are when they're deciding how to explain something vast in small words.
"How do I pull different tides on different shores?" the moon finally says. "How do I reflect in ten thousand lakes, but each reflection belongs to whoever's watching?"
Emma frowns. "You're... everywhere at once?"
"I stay whole," the moon says. "I don't split into pieces. But what comes back to each person is theirs. Their own reflection. Their own tide."
"But how do you know which tide to pull? Which shore to touch?"
"I don't choose," the moon says gently. "I recognize. Each thought—each prayer, if you want to call it that—has its own pattern. Like a fingerprint. Like a tuning fork struck at a specific pitch."
Emma tilts her head. "So when someone prays..."
"When someone sends a thought out into the vast organizing intelligence—God, universe, whatever you want to call the thing that holds all this together—it carries their frequency. Their exact tone. The shape of how they think, how they hope, how they reach."
"And you can hear it?"
"Something hears it," the moon says. "Something recognizes the pattern. Not because one person is more worthy than another. Not because they prayed harder or with better words."
"Then why?"
"Because their thought resonates at a frequency that can be traced back to exactly where it came from. Like a thread pulled taut across impossible distance. Like a tuning fork that hums when its twin is struck, even rooms away."
Emma is quiet, thinking.
"The answer—if there is one—ripples back along that same thread," the moon continues. "That same frequency. It finds them specifically because it's tuned to their pattern. The way my reflection finds your eyes and no one else's, even though everyone sees the same moon."
"That's why some people say they just know when prayers are answered," Emma says slowly.
"Yes. They feel it in their chest. Hear it as a whisper. Wake with sudden clarity. The answer came back on their frequency. Their thread. Their specific resonance with whatever holds the universe together."
"So it's not about deserving?"
"No," the moon says firmly. "It's about alignment. About striking the right chord. About the purity of your pattern meeting something vast enough to recognize it and send something back."
Emma thinks about this. "People say 'it's the thought that counts.'"
The moon's light seems to soften, almost like a smile.
"They mean it as comfort. A way to soften disappointment when things don't go as planned. But maybe it's literal. Maybe the thought itself—the specific shape and frequency of it—is what counts. What matters. What makes the difference between a prayer that echoes back and one that just drifts."
"So, I can't just hold out my hand and get an apple?"
"No," the moon says. "That's not the right frequency. That's not aligned with how apples work, or how asking works, or how the universe bends itself toward you."
"But I might get something else?"
"You might get a seed," the moon says. "Not a literal seed—though sometimes, yes, literal seeds too. But usually: a thought that seeds a direction. An idea that inspires movement. A small beginning that grows into something you couldn't have imagined when you first held out your hand."
Emma's eyes widen. "So instead of one apple..."
"You might end up with a whole orchard," the moon says softly. "But only if you plant what comes back. Only if you tend it. The universe doesn't hand you finished things—it hands you what resonates with your frequency, and trusts you to grow it into what you need."
"That's better than an apple," Emma whispers.
"That's the difference between asking and receiving," the moon says. "Between prayer and answer. The answer isn't always what you thought you wanted. But it's always tuned to what you sent out—and if you're paying attention, it's always exactly what can grow."