Recently many of us at church received an email from an acquaintance in Australia thanking us for our thoughts and prayers for him as he went through emergency surgery for injuries sustained in a surfing accident. He is now home after the successful surgery, and seems to be healing well and rapidly.
What follows is my response (which I have edited to protect people’s privacy) to him and to those included in his thank you. I continue to be amazed at the power of a prayer chain, both for those committed to prayer and for those somewhat skeptical. It seems that when we are under great stress or just hanging onto life, when we know that we are not in control, the power of prayer lessens the stress, gives us hope, and helps us find a new kind of control in God.
Dear ________,
Thank you, thank you for taking the time to send a report of your accident and your continued recovery to your friends around the globe. I believe that your sharing strengthens us all.
It's an awesome experience to be involved in something beyond the rational. Call it what we like, human beings seem to have a longing for God, the ineffable, the Holy, a miracle. Sometimes the longing lays dormant, but then life happens (perhaps a surfing accident) and we feel that something mysterious is a work, helping us get through it all and even make sense of it. Knowing that there are people out there holding our pain and praying for the situation is part of the mystery. Maybe we can't make much sense of it, but we can feel the support/love/compassion, etc.. At the least, or maybe at the most, we know we are not alone.
This prayer chain that we have at church is bigger than any of us can put into words. I can't tell you how powerful it is when someone knows that people are praying for them in Australia and England as well as in the U. S. Well, maybe I don't need to tell you. Maybe you know.
What follows is my response (which I have edited to protect people’s privacy) to him and to those included in his thank you. I continue to be amazed at the power of a prayer chain, both for those committed to prayer and for those somewhat skeptical. It seems that when we are under great stress or just hanging onto life, when we know that we are not in control, the power of prayer lessens the stress, gives us hope, and helps us find a new kind of control in God.
Dear ________,
Thank you, thank you for taking the time to send a report of your accident and your continued recovery to your friends around the globe. I believe that your sharing strengthens us all.
It's an awesome experience to be involved in something beyond the rational. Call it what we like, human beings seem to have a longing for God, the ineffable, the Holy, a miracle. Sometimes the longing lays dormant, but then life happens (perhaps a surfing accident) and we feel that something mysterious is a work, helping us get through it all and even make sense of it. Knowing that there are people out there holding our pain and praying for the situation is part of the mystery. Maybe we can't make much sense of it, but we can feel the support/love/compassion, etc.. At the least, or maybe at the most, we know we are not alone.
This prayer chain that we have at church is bigger than any of us can put into words. I can't tell you how powerful it is when someone knows that people are praying for them in Australia and England as well as in the U. S. Well, maybe I don't need to tell you. Maybe you know.
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