A friend said to me yesterday, “You seem so calm.” She was right; I really have been calm. For the past forty-eight hours I feel like Andy and I have been floating on a cloud of witnesses. We have been held up on a magic carpet of prayer. For once I have surrendered and accepted the ride.
This two-day experience of my husband’s heart surgery has confirmed something I knew in my head but not so much in my heart. When my own arteries to God feel clogged and impassable, there is a whole community of friends, family, acquaintances, and even non-acquaintances praying on my behalf. This community becomes my “bypass” to God. If I ever wonder whether my prayers for others are really worth anything, I know now. The significance of my prayers is not their content as much as their intent. My prayers, the prayers of others, and all of us who pray them become part of the large cloud holding a person aloft and loved during adversity.
Prayers come in all flavors: verbal prayers, silent prayers, danced prayers, drawn prayers, sung prayers, walking prayers….Here are the prayers of my friends Sharon and Randall for Andy.
Proper 17 Collect–Book of Common Prayer (p. 233)
Lord of all power and might, the author and giver of all good things: Graft in our hearts the love of your Name; increase in us true religion; nourish us with all goodness; and bring forth in us the fruit of good works; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen
