doing something

Prayer does not fit us for the greater work, prayer is the greater work. -Oswald Chambers

When someone you love is sick or in pain or experiencing a struggle or grief that's hardly bearable, you want to do something, but usually there's nothing. That person is overrun with baked goods, plagued by well wishers and phone calls, living but lost even to herself.

Tonight I miss my cousin. Her husband was recently diagnosed with a very serious and aggressive stomach cancer and he and she are on the edge of my thoughts every moment of the day. I long to "be there." But they are covered by his immediate family and her immediate family and doctors and neighbors and long-lost friends. It is too much. She is ready to hang a sign on the door, "Please, no more food," and take the phone off the hook. I can feel it for her. But, still, I miss her terribly.

Tomorrow hundreds of people will be praying for Ray. We all agreed (enthusiastically) to do it. I have often questioned what prayer "does." How does it work? Can and will God intervene? Does a prayer really do anything?

The sad events of the last several months have shown me that prayer is the only tool at our disposal, the only trick in our bag, and, very often, the only thing we can do for someone that makes any kind of difference. Prayer is a mystery. It is not science. It's power cannot be proven (although studies show some fascinating results). And it has an incredible, potentially lifechanging impact when two or more people do it together.

Hundreds will pray for Ray tomorrow, and the heavens will be ringing. Together we will finally all be doing something that really matters.