It starts in elementary. I was in first grade attending a
church with my mom’s friend who we lived with.
I asked my mom how to know that God could hear me and how to hear Him
responding when I talked to Him. She
told me to ask the pastor guy but he had a crowd of people so I said I’d ask
him next time. Well, that week the
church burned down, and I don’t remember if we ever went again after that, but
I know I never got that question answered.
That doesn’t have much to do with anything, so I’m going
to take you to my high school years which have more importance in this story. I was a questioner, not really a believer,
and not a fan of praying. While, I never
thought back to those questions from first grade, I knew I didn’t know much
about God or praying and I didn’t want to talk to the air. I had a really good friend I went to church
with on occasion. This friend and I would pray together.
It started around the end of my junior year. We had a coach at our school (he wasn’t our
coach, but his wife was a PE Teacher and friend of ours and my friend’s soccer
coach). This guy coach had cancer. He was only like 26 years old and suffering from
a kind of rare cancer that usually only appears in older seniors. He got some treatments, was doing ok, then
got used to the treatments. There were no other treatments to try and the
doctors gave him a few months. He lived past those few months and they gave him
another few months. During that time coach found a trial treatment, and he flew
from Virginia to Boston for three days at a time, every week, for treatment and
recovery. The new treatment was working,
and he made it past the new date. Again they gave him a date because while it
was working, they didn’t see it going away ever. Coach became too used to those
medicines also and now there really were no more treatments to try. He was getting
weaker. As the end of the school year was approaching my friend wanted us to
pray for him since we wouldn’t see him again until the fall, and so we did. The
next day he passed away. I was so mad
and hurt. I was not going to pray again.
Fast forward not even two full months. My friend
convinced me to pray again. This time we were praying for some of our friends
who were about to leave for college. That night/early morning there was a bad
accident and one of those friends died. It
really stunk because of the four people in the car, the driver, who was the
only one wearing a seatbelt and the only one with no drugs or alcohol in her
system, was the only one who died. I was
so frustrated and angry that I had fell to praying. Now I was sure I would
never pray again. I would never give opportunity for someone else to die, it wasn’t’
worth it.
Well, go forward a few years to college, I have become a
believer and am hanging out with my mentor one day. She asks me to pray before we start our bible
study. Now between this friend dying and this point I was fine listening to
people pray. It didn’t mean anything to me, I just listened. So what was I going
to do? I was ready to just walk away and leave. I knew I was either going to
leave or I was going to pray. I was scared to death inside. I ended up staying and
praying that day. I prayed many more
times with my mentor and friends and other times. I even made prayers during church
more personal and agreed with them instead of just sitting listening. And you
know what? No one else died “as a result of my praying”. Not that my friends
died because I prayed anyways. Because, I mean really, who I am to give myself
that kind of power? To say that my prayers have the power to kill people? They
do not, and by saying or thinking like that, I was putting myself on God’s
level. I am nowhere near God’s level, and do not want to be.
After a few years of praying more and coming to these
realizations and conclusions, I can now say for sure that prayer is my day to
day communication with my best friend, my Savior. While there are definitely still struggles
and times praying is hard, and there are times when I don’t want to tell God
stuff, even though He already knows everything, I am at a much better place
with prayer. I am to the point that I pray every day, and sometimes multiple
times a day.
“Confess your trespasses to one another, that you may be
healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” James
5:16
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