Power of Prayer ... Three Years Later

A little over three years ago, I wrote on my thoughts about prayer.

I can't say that my beliefs have changed exactly. I still have a hard time believing that God could be so capricious that prayer would change the outcome of any scenario.

And yet ... I also believe that there is a power in prayer that transcends the good feelings enjoyed by the person doing the praying and the person informed that s/he was prayed for.

This week, I am doing some super-intensive praying for three friends. One waiting on her results. One waiting on her child's results. One going through something just awful.

I write special prayers. I am first a writer, then a speaker. So I write out prayers, the better to order my thoughts. The better to make my offering.

I light candles. Close my eyes. Say the words. Pray. No, harder. PRAY. PRAY!!!

I tell ya ever since he was an itty bitty boy, sometimes he talks to the lord and sometimes he yells at the lord, tonight he just happens to be yellin at him.

-- The Apostle

I pray because they are far away and I cannot hold them in my arms.

I pray because I have no power to make it better.

I pray because it is all I can do.

I pray because ... well, not because. I pray for the same reason I breathe. I don't think about breathing. Most of the time. I just do it, because I must.

I lift them up in prayer.

I send love -- the feeling for them that wells up and overflows me, I think of them and send it zinging through the air toward them.

Do they feel it? I don't know.

Does it make a difference? I don't know.

Written or not, conscious or not, with my will or against it ...

I pray.