to Believe in the Power of Prayer

“The belief in prayer is very strong. Does it really work?” Powerful statement, isn’t it? Caught your attention and made you think. Good! I’m not here to help sway you one way or another. Just sharing some thoughts I’ve had on the subject lately, so bear with me.

When you are a child, you’re taught about God, church, the Bible and prayer. You always tried to utilize this powerful thing called prayer in your everyday life. For example, when you really wanted to go out to eat instead of eating your mother’s meatloaf for the third time in two weeks. “Oh please, dear God, tell my dad to take us out to dinner, pleaseeeee!” Or in school, during a test, “Oh dear Lord, what was the answer to that question? Please help me pass this test!” Admit it, you KNOW you did this stuff. I did.

My strongest encounter with this powerful tool was when I was about fourteen or fifteen. We were on a family vacation in Ruidoso, New Mexico. We had spent a great week around town, walking around downtown, buying different kinds of cheese at a local market to take back to the cabin. We sliced the cheese up and played card games. Minature golf was on the agenda that week. The day before we left, my father promised that we could play one more game of golf the next morning before we left town. Unfortunately, it was raining when we got up the next day. My sister and I were very upset. As we drove to McDonald’s for breakfast, I remember sitting in the back seat, saying a silent prayer. “Please, God, please let it stop raining long enough for us to play one more game of putt-putt.” As we walked out of McDonald’s, it suddenly stopped raining. I remember thinking, “WHOA!” Somehow, we convinced Dad it wasn’t that wet and we should go play. Of course, there were puddles all over the course, but we didn’t care. We had a blast hitting the golf balls through the puddles, trying to make it into the holes. As we got to the last hole, it started to sprinkle. By the time we all finished, it started to pour and we all ran back to the car laughing.

Something like that makes a powerful impression on a kid, and it has certainly influenced me through the years. Being a preacher’s daughter, I was raised in an environment where it is very important. But does one answered prayer really prove that it works? Or was it just a fluke of nature, total coincidence?

In a previous article, I mentioned a website called Find a Grave, where the members lean on one another during trying times. We are always asking each other to pray when a family member or a friend is sick, or when we’ve suffered a loss, or we’ve just had a bad day. There are about 100 regular members or so that go to the message boards every day. Now with that many people praying for one person, I’d say the odds were pretty good that a difference can be made.

But it doesn’t just affect the people who are praying. It affects the people who are being prayed for. There is a young girl with cancer who is the niece of one of our regulars. She is a senior in high school. This should be one of the most exciting times of her life, yet she is suffering through horrific chemo treatments. It touches all of us, because we think of our own children. Yet it is her mother who has been touched the most by the amount of support and prayers that are being said for her daughter. It brings her comfort and peace to know that so many people, strangers who don’t even know her or her child, are praying for them.

Does prayer really work? Yes, although if you ask some people, they’ll say no. But if you truly believe in the power of prayer and what it can do, then all things are possible. But sometimes believing in something is not an easy thing, especially in the chaotic world we live in right now. Now is the time to believe in the power of prayer. You pray that the war will end soon; you pray that those in power won’t do something stupid to put more people in harm’s way; you pray that somewhere out there is a voice of reason that will get people to listen. Sometimes belief in prayer and a higher being is the only thing that can get you through a personal crisis. But either way, it will make you stronger.

Do I believe in the power of prayer? Yes. I believe that I have been given certain challenges in my life, whether I want them or not. Prayer is sometimes the one thing that gets me through painful days. I know God wouldn’t challenge me without a reason, so I pray that what I am going through helps someone else. I pray that my son will learn to believe that prayer is important. I pray that God will help a young girl and her mother through the biggest challenge of her young life. I pray that those of us who are praying for her, all over the world, become stronger in some small way. Most of all, I pray for peace. May we all pray for peace.