Category Archives: Prayer

Wait-and-See

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Between my sister’s family and mine, we’ve racked up 25 trips to local emergency rooms. Admittedly, most were a result of raising 14 adventurous children, but we adults have to take credit for some of them. Yesterday it was my turn.

One week ago a searing pain took over my left side so powerfully I couldn’t move to reach my phone or get enough breath to yell for Birgitta in the next room. It raged for nearly an hour before subsiding but eventually went away completely.

Later that day I told Louisa and Birgitta about it but asked them to keep it quiet. Although they honored my request, they pressured me to tell my sister Mary, our family nurse. I knew if I did, she’d insist I take immediate medical action, so I decided instead to just wait-and-see.

As the week progressed, other curious symptoms popped up: two sharp pains in the upper back, occasional dizziness, achy feelings in my chest, extra fatigue. Were these warnings about an approaching heart event? I didn’t want to risk damage by waiting, but didn’t want to over-react either. So I did what I always do when I don’t know what to do.

I asked God, then decided to just wait-and-see.

A short while later, I was catching up on emails and among them was a friend’s description of an adult daughter’s new heart problem. She also shared about her husband’s unexpected heart procedure at age 70. All I could think was, “Lord, you’ve answered my prayer, and now I know what to do.”

I told Mary.

Although I wasn’t in severe pain, within 90 minutes I was packed and driving from Michigan to Chicago where the two of us walked into the E.R. at Rush Medical Center. Approaching the check-in desk I casually said, “I’m having mild chest pain and…”

In seconds I was tucked into a wheelchair and whisked toward multiple blood tests, a chest x-ray, a rolling EKG, an IV line, and hospital admittance. I didn’t even have time to notify my children. My medical adventure culminated in this morning’s treadmill stress test, monitored by a doctor, a nurse, and a tech.

The upshot of the whole episode? I’m 100% heart-healthy with less than a 1% chance of ever having a heart attack.

So what was that all about? Maybe it was to prompt gratitude for the days I’m not in an ER. It could have been to get educated about heart-health, which we did. Maybe it was to newly appreciate my sister’s love and concern. Possibly it was a dress rehearsal for what’s coming, or a test of whether or not I really trust God when trouble hits. I guess I’ll just wait-and-see.

The whole thing leaves me with several questions, but I may never get the answers. Though ER docs suggested I follow-up with my regular internist this week, I think I’ll just…

wait-and-see.

“Keep watch over me and keep me out of trouble; don’t let me down when I run to you.” (Psalm 25:20, The Message)

Something to Crow About

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Three year old Skylar lives in a country-like neighborhood with lots of natural wildlife, including a flock of crows. Sometimes they swoop around in a group or congregate in one tree. When that happens Skylar says, “Today they’re having a meeting.”

Recently a crow flew overhead with a “Caw! Caw!”

“Wow!” I said. “Did you see that giant black bird?”

“That’s a macaw,” she said.

“Really?” I said, watching the crow disappear over the trees. “I thought macaws had bright colors.”

“No. They’re black.”

Then she said, “And I speak their language.”

“Impressive,” I said. “How’d you learn that?”

“Oh, I always knew it,” she said. “Actually, I taught it to the macaws.”

Learning languages is tricky. Teaching them is more so. Most of us have struggled to learn the ins and outs of a foreign language during school years, from Latin to French to Spanish and beyond. Biblical scholars work at Hebrew and Greek, and toddlers work to be understood by anyone.

Gary Chapman wrote THE 5 LOVE LANGUAGES, explaining how to communicate best with those we love most. Not only do different generations speak differently, different decades do, too. But that’s not all. There are male-female variations and personality-type distinctions. It’s almost too complicated to figure out, so why bother?

We bother because of love.

When we love someone, we want to understand them better, including foreigners. Despite not understanding at first, it’s good to keep trying. God, the Great Communicator, is hoping we will. His desire is that we all become members of his family, and part of having harmonious relationships is communicating effectively. If we can’t understand each other, we are, in a way, foreigners living together in frustration. The Lord wants us all to “click,” and like all good fathers, he’s hoping his children will get to the place of communicating blessing to each other.

He also wants us to come to him for conversation. The biblical David put it well: “My heart has heard you say, “Come and talk with me.” And my heart responds, “Lord, I am coming.” (Psalm 27:8) I’ll never get over the fact that God Almighty has an interest in our communication with each other, and even personally, him with me. My longing is to talk to others and to him in a way that will please him, and to accurately understand his language back to me.

And so I’ll keep trying.

I’m also trying to communicate with the crow-macaws as well as Skylar does. Yesterday we were playing in her driveway when she said, “I can ride my bike as fast as the birds fly. And when I yell up to ‘em in bird language, they fly where I tell ‘em to go.”

Flawless communication, to be sure.

”There are many different languages in the world, and every language has meaning. But if I don’t understand a language, I will be a foreigner to someone who speaks it, and the one who speaks it will be a foreigner to me.” (1 Corinthians 14:10-11)

Grrrr

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America is a country obsessed with dieting, and over the years I’ve tried most of the fad diets. Many were complicated, requiring food diaries, portion weighing, or regular meetings.

Looking for simpler ways to do it, I did find a few: eating only protein, only vegetables, or only diet shakes. But these were “hoax diets,” quick weight loss but even quicker re-gain.

Eventually I heard about a streamlined diet that sounded foolproof. It had only one rule: wait to eat until you growl.

Although stomachs make gurgling noises when they’re full of food, we all recognize the rumbling hunger pangs that come when we’re genuinely empty. They are the body’s call for food, and if we wait to eat until we feel them, we know we’re eating for the right reason.

Years ago I was afraid of hunger pangs. On the rare occasion when they came, they made me edgy, almost panicky. But later I realized they could become my friends, because they were a clear-cut go-ahead to get something to eat.

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This morning as I sat with 4 other women around a small wooden table at church, the sounds of heartfelt prayer went up to heaven as we prayed over 130 requests. Surely our calls to the Lord pleased him, since he has instructed us to make our requests known to him. (Philippians 4:6)

Our little round table was littered with pages and small cards on which Scripture verses had been written. These were supernatural words we were praying into the lives of those mentioned in the requests. The sound of those verses also must have brought pleasure to God, because the Bible’s words initiated with him. (John 1:1)

And then as we continued to pray, I heard a third sound mingling with the names, requests, and verses: a growling stomach. And then two. And finally three! It was stereophonic grrrr-ing.

There were only 5 of us at the table, and I knew rice cakes and peanut butter were keeping my stomach quiet. But I marveled that 3 of these 4 women had skipped breakfast to rush to the church for purposeful prayer, early in the day. And surely because their growling came as a result of putting prayer first, it too was a sound that pleased the Lord.

We prayed on and on, and the growling continued. The rumblings refreshed my spirit as I thought about how keen-to-pray these women really were. God was listening to our prayers and their grrrrs, and I know beyond doubt he’ll not only answer the requests but will also pour out blessing on those doing the praying.

Americans may be obsessed with dieting, but I’m learning that the healthiest obsession is to have a steady diet of passionate prayer.

The angel answered, “Your prayers… have come up as a memorial offering before God.” (Acts 10:4)

 

Travel-size Worship

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It seemed an oxymoron to be attending a worship service between an airport security check and the gate check-in, but that’s what happened when I flew to Florida recently. While hiking along the crowded walkways at Chicago’s Midway Airport, a loudspeaker announcement rose above the racket: “All are welcome to join us for a 30 minute Christian service in the chapel on the mezzanine level.”

I had some extra time before my flight, and curiosity urged me toward the chapel. Maybe it was God himself urging me. Although thousands of travelers marched with purpose down the wide corridors, I wondered how many would divert to the chapel.

Following signs depicting a kneeling figure, I rode the elevator to the “M” floor and found the chapel. A pastor had just begun the service by reciting the 100th Psalm, arms outstretched, face toward heaven, and eyes closed. His congregation was 5 members, each seated next to their carry-on luggage.

When the pastor saw me, he walked over and delivered a welcome, a handshake, a bulletin, and a New Testament. “Come right in and have a seat,” he said. “We’re about to take prayer requests.”

His mini-service proceeded according to the bulletin, and I asked prayer for the big event bringing me to Florida: the home birth of my 6th grandchild. The pastor asked for Linnea and Adam’s first names, then prayed with passion for many wonderful birth-time blessings. His mini-message followed, taken from John 4, the story of a woman at her local watering well. “Jesus was a weary traveler,” the preacher said, “just like some of you might be.”

He described this biblically rare encounter between Jesus and just one other person, no one else around. “She was traveling through life carrying a lot of baggage,” the pastor said, using another airport metaphor. “And Jesus was ready with wonderful refreshment.”

As he concluded, the pastor said, “I know you all have planes to catch, so we’ll close in prayer. Feel free to take your Bibles along with you.” He ended by offering to talk one-on-one with any who might want that, and one young man did stay behind.

Apparently every large US airport has a chapel where travelers can find quietness and a place to pray. It’s nice to know God is waiting there in a calm, private place conducive to a peaceful meeting amidst the very stressful environment of an airport.

Of course he’s also in line at security, seated at every gate, and traveling on every flight, too. That’s good to know, since I’ll be back at the airport this weekend, heading home.

“As for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Sovereign Lord my refuge.” (Psalm 73:28)

What good will it do?

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One of life’s great privileges is being able to talk to the Almighty. After reading the Old Testament and seeing how he kept a distance between himself and people to the point of causing whole mountains to shake, it’s astounding he allows us to approach him at all. He not only allows it, he encourages it, warmly inviting us to come into his throne room. He even suggests we “come boldly,” bringing requests. What changed from Old Testament to New?

Jesus came, that’s what.

As we celebrate his arrival again this Christmas, we’re conscious of the extraordinary benefits made available to us by his coming, but there’s none greater than being given access to the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It’s free to us, but certainly wasn’t to Jesus, who paid our entrance fee.

One of my great joys during the last 20 years has been to sit with others for extended times in the throne room. This week while meeting with 4 women to pray over a list of requests given to us by the church and individuals, a spirit of discouragement flooded through me. As we got ready to pray, we divided up the long list into 5 parts, one for each of us to cover out loud while the others prayed silently. We do it this way each week, but for some reason this time I felt swamped by all the requests. There were 83 in all, many of which had 2-3 sub-requests within them.

How could we pray for them all in the 90 minutes available?

As the first woman began praying, my mind stayed stuck in the enormity of our task. My head was bowed, but my eyes weren’t closed. They were reading the list: physical maladies, emotional crises, relationship divisions, financial struggles. On and on it went. How could our little band of 5 accomplish anything significant for these hundreds of needy people?

My desire to converse with God was plummeting, but his desire to talk to me was still strong. And talk he did: “Do you think your invitation into my throne room is so you can show me what you can do for these folks? Or is it for Me to show you what I can do?”

And that’s all it took to pull me into the conversation.

I’m thankful for the reminder that prayer is all about God, not me. My part is just to approach him with confidence, believing he hears and answers the requests I bring. And sometimes he does it well before reaching #83 on the list: “Before they call I will answer; while they are still speaking I will hear.” (Isaiah 65:24)

“Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.” (Hebrews 4:16)