How often do we hedge our prayers? Instead of being bold and asking for healing, a miracle, or for God to show up and show up in ways we can’t anticipate or predict, why do we hold back?
A retired college professor had a colleague visit him. The professors went to the local diner for lunch. When my dear friend opened his apartment door, a flash fire covered his face and he was rushed to the emergency hospital with first degree burns. I remember visiting him on the trauma unit, his face was red as a beet and covered with vasolene to ease the pain. He had no harsh words for his colleague who accidently left a lit cigarette in his waste basket that started the apartment fire. Rather, he whispered to me that “God’s will be done.” I prayed over his blistered face and bald head and anointed him with the Sacrament of the Sick. That night I prayed the Our Father, and got to the words “thy will be done” I said it like I had never said it before… I had completely surrendered control over this – which was the only thing I could do since I had no control. That was when there came this sense of peace where I knew God had stepped in and in this peace I was convinced everything would be okay.
The following day I went back to the hospital and this professor spoke no longer in a whisper but with bold confidence and gratitude. “Your prayers father worked. I have no pain.” His doctors said, “it was a miracle.” He was fine, he would eventually be discharged out of the hospital and resume his life as before. Despite the horror of the flash fire and uncertainty, that experience that night convinced me that God was there and active. As my friend said to me, “praise God,” for he made a complete
Sometimes, we might think that our prayer lists is like a news reports, where we just rattle off headlines to God. It’s as if we are an employee popping into the boss’s office, informing him of everyone waiting for him in the office or on the phone, all seeking answers. We think that we need to keep reminding or pestering Him and imaging He knows what to do… Rather then remembering that He’s not some boss… and He doesn’t want us to see ourselves like an employee either. The amazing truth that He is a Good Father and He wants us to go to Him as His beloved sons and daughters with our thoughts, our feelings – to share what we’re worrying about, what is keeping us up at night… our desperate cries to heal our loved ones or ask for a little love for ourselves. He wants us to go to Him, to trust Him, and, to let Him speak into any and everything that we are experiencing.
Lord, I pray for all my Sonshine Friends who have burning issues they have not shared with you. Instead of being hesitate or doubtful, may we find the confidence and trust to lay bare our fears and not hold back what needs to be said. Take our pain, our friend’s pain, our family’s pain and heal us with your saving power. Like my dear friend said, “Your prayers do help, Praise God.”
