11.20 // Prayers

I begin the examen tonight while scraping purple gluestick scum off the living room floor.
And I’ve never been more grateful to clean in my entire life.

The examen begins on hands and knees, right here with sponge and spray in hand:

I am grateful that Benson was sitting in this exact spot today, blistery hands clutching purple kid-sized scissors and a glue stick, surrounded by slices of mangled construction paper.
My heart rejoices in his little crafts: a pig, a lime birthday cake, a NFL logo of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
I am thankful that he was well enough to sit in this place for a while— that he was himself just for a bit.

And I see God in this tiny moment, this mess on the floor.
Because I know that many faithful friends and family have come out of the woodwork to pray for him:
Neighbors from Kentucky;
Friends from our old neighborhood in Ferndale;
Grandmas and grandpas and great grandmas and aunts and uncles and great aunts and great uncles all together;
College buddies and old teammates and church ladies who teach Ben in Sunday School;
Friends in Texas and Ohio and Florida and Michigan and West Virginia and Indiana and family in Europe, too.

All of them have prayed.
And right here in the floor, I have to believe, is evidence of their prayers— answers even, to their prayers.

Even though I know that viruses run their course and diseases end in time, there is still something miraculous in our healings. It is incredible to know that our bodies are designed in such a way that they can defend and withstand something so disfiguring, so rampant. What divine handiwork!

And my soul is stirred when I consider that God cares about our bodies, too— that He cares enough and loves enough and is attentive enough to move within our dust and breath bodies and speak them to life again and again.

How many times, I wonder, has the Spirit spoken to my damaged cells and weakened immune system and brought them into wholeness?
How many times has his Presence soothed a weary muscle?
How many times has He strengthened me in an answer to a desperate prayer— or even without my asking?

The Great Physician— moving amongst us, body and soul, and bringing Life wherever He touches, wherever He breathes, wherever He speaks.

And while I’ve seen many stay sick, and I’ve seen several pass away from infections and injury and cancers far too soon, I cannot say that I haven’t seen God move even in those darkest of times. There are no easy answers as to why some eventually get up and begin cutting and gluing again, and others never do.
But I have to trust that God is moving still.
He is among us still.
He is breathing and speaking and touching still.

And I trust because of the prayers of the faithful.
Faithful friends and family that rally around us when we ask for it, when we reveal that we have need— that we are scared, when answers are hard to come by, when there is unavoidable pain.

As I scrape the final bit of tack from the floor, I recall my friend Libby’s response to my text message request for prayer: “On my knees right now.”
The thought of her on her knees as I am now, in prayer for Benson, for us— it stirs by feeble heart to mustard seed faith.

Jackson once asked our Bible study group to list the names of anyone they knew had prayed for them that day. Some had a rather short list, and other’s had a quite a few. And several had no one at all to write down. After a few moments pause, we shared our lists vulnerably, with Jackson adding that he had prayed for each us that day. And not only him, but Christ, our great Advocate at the right hand of the Father, was speaking our name, petitioning on our behalf: mercy and grace, mercy and grace.

I will never forget the feeling, the soul stirring revelation, that others had lifted my name to the Father— even without me knowing. Saints and believers, family and friends, those who I live next door to and those who have gone long before me.
And, Christ, too. He who is the very Word that brought the universe into orbit, speaks our name into Life and into Love in this very moment.

There is a great cloud of witnesses, dear friends.
And in our weariness, when we are blistered and disfigured by pain within us and pain outside of us, there is prayer. We are surrounded by it. We are made whole by it.

And while I have been struck by the might of my friends’ prayers this week, I am beginning to realize how very little I think of my own. My times of prayer are often distracted, interrupted, few an far between. Most days my prayers lack gusto and any sensation that they are powerful, that they matter.

I don’t experience answers right away. I often don’t see their affects very quickly, and sometimes not at all. If I follow a liturgy or recite prayer, I struggle to linger, to pause, to believe that these words will do anything more than dissipate into the air. In fact, I have gone through many seasons when my prayer seems unheard, or at best, like some kind of cathartic practice— like sending “best wishes” or releasing worry into the universe or rehearsing and nice spiritual poem.
Prayer often feels very small.
But it is prayer that releases power in this upside-down Kingdom.

There is a saint in our church who is getting older, and as she ages, she struggles to participate and serve like she used to. I can tell that her fading eyesight and tottering balance grieves her, and she tells us so.
But she also says, “I can’t do much, but I can pray.”
And she does.
On nights she can’t sleep well, she prays.
When she is snowed in, she prays.
In the evenings when her home is quiet, she prays.

So last fall she prayed for her son who was diagnosed with lung cancer again. And a few weeks later he stood outside his big rig and heard God speak right to him.
He heard God’s voice.
As clear as when He spoke to the prophets and the Old Testament patriarchs and to Moses and all those we describe as being uniquely enlightened.
God spoke to a sick man in overalls right there in the parking lot.

And I know that his mother’s saintly prayer had something to do with it.

I think of all the mamas who have prayed:
St. Monica, St. Augustine’s mom;
St. Zelie, St. Therese of Lisieux’s mother;
Of course the Blessed Mary, the mother of Jesus;
And where would we be without all the other mothers who, like Susanna Wesley, the mother of John and Charles Wesley, threw their aprons over their heads so they could talk a moment with their Lord; who like the Benson’s prayed for my own parents before they went to bed each night; those dear ones who lifted my Benson up to Jesus again and again.

Because we know that the Kingdom perseveres on prayers of mother and fathers, of friends and family, of neighbors near and far.
We know this because we are evidence of their prayer.
We are here because of their faithfulness to kneel.

Jackson just walked in and told me about a random pastor he bumped into at WalMart today who had heard from another Kokomo pastor that our boy was pretty sick. (Just think of how the word of our need has spread in this town!)
And he put his hands on Jackson right there in the store and prayed for Benson by name. Because he cared enough to know and remember Ben’s name. And his heart was so embedded by holy Love that he touched and spoke and petitioned on behalf of Love.
And Jackson’s belly was warmed.
And the Spirit was right there with them.

Benson is in bed now, asleep and healing and surrounded by prayer.
He doesn’t know it.
He can’t feel it. (And the only thing he really does feel these days is itchy!)
He will never be able to name every heart that spoke his name to the Father over the last five days.
But surrounding his little tired and bumpy body are the sacred blessings and prayers of the faithful.

And my heart rejoices in their love.