Prayer is one of those subjects you either love or hate. I can’t help those who hate it, and I’m not going to try. But for the rest of us, here are some incidents from my life where prayer has proved very powerful.
Pregnant and out of Food: It was our first child, and my husband had been laid off. There wasn’t anything in the house for me to make for dinner. I heard a knock on the front door, and opened it to one of my husband’s former coworkers. He had a couple of bags of groceries in his hands.
It wasn’t just those two bags. He and his wife had loaded the bed of their pickup with food for us. That food lasted until our daughter was born.
Four TVs: We had just moved to California, and we didn’t bring much with us. The folks in The Grapes of Wrath probably brought more with them than we could haul ourselves.
For most of us, a television wasn’t on the “immediate needs” list. We enjoyed reading, and the library could supply that need for free. However, one of us hated to read and longed for a television.
This is how I know God has a sense of humor. Four of us prayed for a tv set. None of us talked about it. It was trivial next to the other needs we had at the time. However, besides meeting the other needs, we ended up with four tv sets. Only one worked, but…
1 Cat, Ten Percent Chance: Merlin was a two year old cat. He was a last minute addition to our westward venture, and he was not used to staying indoors. In fact, he got out every chance he could.
We suspect he got into a fight. The next thing we know, he’s sitting on the front steps and he couldn’t swallow. We didn’t have a car, so we put him in a box and carried him to the nearest vet. The man gave Merlin a ten percent chance to survive.
We had all been through so much, we couldn’t let him go if there was a chance. The next day, when we checked on his progress, the vet told us Merlin would live. He needed medications and seclusion, but he did live. He died at the old age of 16.
Shattered Knee: There was a chance I might not walk on it again. It was a certainty in the doctor’s mind that it would never heal well and it would always be a major problem. I was told to expect a serious limp, and perhaps need crutches to move around. I was scared.
I called everyone I could think of and asked them to pray. I think I had about half the country doing so. When I woke up in the recovery room, the doctor told me, “I don’t know how I did it. It all just seemed to fall into place.”
Never say something like that to a person recovering from surgery unless you want a truthful answer. I said, “That’d be God.”
I believe that. I can walk. I don’t limp. I don’t need crutches. I don’t need a lot of pain medication, unless I try hiking or something equally strenuous.
*This* is why I believe in the power of prayer.