The Power of Prayer

I lay on the bed, thinking.  Allan was already in a deep sleep.  After all, he had placed his head on the pillow two minutes ago.  But not me.  I was thinking.  I thought.  Then thought some more.  Then I began to will my brain into slumber.  Stop, brain.  Stop it!  There you go...that's it.

And was promptly interrupted.

Melanie.

"What?" I asked silently.

Go check on Brandon.

"Whatever for?  I am sure he is fine."  I replied.  Brandon was about a year old at the time.  And if he wasn't making a peep, the last thing I wanted to do was to get out of my comfortable bed to check on a child that was actually sleeping.

Melanie.

"Oh, ok Lord.  I'm going."

I walked to Brandon's room, tip-toed up to his crib and peered over the edge.  He was sleeping soundly.  His breathing was deep and even.

As I returned to bed I noticed that there were lights flashing outside our dining room window.  I looked out the window and saw our neighbors milling around their yard with flashlights.

Uh, oh.

It came to me in a flash.  When we had come home earlier in the day, there was a running shoe lying in the middle of our driveway.  Just one lonely running shoe in a place where it should never be.  Our precious puppy, Moe, had apparently been out on the town while we were away and had come home with his favorite thing: footwear.  Usually it was flip-flops or mud shoes.  This time is was a new-looking running shoe.  We had no idea which neighbor he had acquired it from, so we set it on the trashcan and promptly forgot about it.

And now I knew deep in my heart what those neighbors of mine were doing.  Those neighbors were looking for that shoe.  That nice, new-looking running shoe.

I hurried back to my room and got dressed.

As I opened the back door, the neighbors were huddled together in a circle.

"Jim?" I called.

"Hi, Melanie," he responded.

"By chance you are looking for a shoe...this one?" I asked, holding it up for inspection.

"Oh, oh...praise the Lord!" was the resounding reply.  I took it over to the fence and handed it to him while seven or eight people with flashlights watched.  He continued, "We were just praying about it, and when we said 'Amen' you opened the back door!  You see, my cousin is here visiting.  She was leaving and couldn't find her shoe.  And all her travel money is under the sole of THAT shoe!"

About that time I was profusely thanking God that Moe had chosen not the shred that shoe (and the dollars it contained).

After explaining, and stumbling over an apology, I said goodnight and went back to bed.

Prayer.  It's an amazing thing.  We ask God for something...and He hears us.  He listens.  He cares.  He responds.  

To me, prayer is such an amazing display of God's love and power.  Every time I witness His love and power, I trust Him a little more.  My faith grows stronger.

I so want my kids to know that God is real.  We can't see Him.  We can't touch Him.  Oh, but He can hear us.

So, I try to pray with them about the big things, the little things and all the things in-between.  And they are learning. Prayer isn't something that just happens at meal-time and bedtime.  Usually it's the informal prayers that have the biggest impact in our lives.  God WANTS us to pour our hearts out to Him, even though He already knows what's inside.

Prayer should be anywhere.  Prayer should be always.  Always and anywhere, anywhere and always.

And then, this summer, I experienced another "knock your socks off" prayer incident.

It was the middle of the night and I was dreaming.  Dreaming that something terrible had happened to someone's husband.  I awoke with a start and lay there in bed, my heart pounding.  It was real. I felt it.  Very real.  It was so real that I got out of bed and got my phone.  "Who, Lord?" I asked. "Who?"  

Pray for Jess.

"Jess?  But I was just with her today.  She was fine.  Brad was fine.  They just left here five hours ago."

But I prayed for Jess.  For an hour I prayed for Jess and Brad.  And I kept looking at my phone.

"What are you doing?"  asked Allan squinting at me and my phone in the darkness.

"I, uh, had a bad dream," I said.

And I debated.  Should I text her.  "I don't be silly, " I told myself.  "She's 7 months pregnant with twins, and you're going to text her in the middle of the night to wake her up?"  But...

Then I fell back asleep.  At breakfast, I told Allan about it.

And then I heard the news.  Brad was sick.   Really, really sick.  Jess debated taking him into ER in the middle of the night, he was that sick.  At what time?  Oh, at the EXACT time that I was praying.

God doesn't need us.  But He uses us.  He says that the same power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead is at work, IN US.  My brain has a hard time wrapping itself around that statement.  But my heart knows it's true.

There's power, power in prayer.