Hello Friends,
I hope you had a Merry Christmas! It was wonderful to worship with so many of you on Christmas Eve as we considered the real meaning of Christmas – the gospel (the King who was born, lived, died, and rose again). I trust you are enjoying the holidays.
Do you ever wonder if God hears your prayers? Does He hear our prayers? Sometimes it feels like our prayers merely hit the ceiling and bounce back down. Other times it is obvious that God not only hears but that He responds. Theologically we know that He always hears, yet a real life example may be helpful. Recently a friend from Church on Mill sent this to me and asked that I share it with you (below). I think you’ll be blessed by it.
Prayerfully,
Chuck
As a crisis intervention specialist, I have responded to many traumatic incidents. However, there is one particular incident that really served to remind me that prayer really does work. A few weeks ago, a call came in for a woman who was the victim of an attempted armed robbery outside a mailing company. Once we arrived on scene, my team and I started talking to the woman in an effort to calm her down. Even though she was unhurt, she was in shock and significantly traumatized. On such a call, our job is to do brief crisis counseling and provide referrals to the client if they should need help in the future.
The crisis counseling began as a routine counseling session with us assessing her coping skills and trying to determine what support systems she had in place once she left the scene and made it home. The client then started to process what really happened and below is the story she told through many tears and striking ‘ah-ha’ moments.
“I was rushing to get the box mailed off for my boss and left my purse in my car. I saw this kid on a bike but paid no attention to him even though I thought it was weird. He rode up to me wearing a mask and told me to give him my purse. I just looked at him and told him “I don’t have my purse.” I didn’t realize what he was really saying until he said it again, “Give me your purse”. I gave him the same response and started walking away thoroughly annoyed and that’s when he pulled out the gun and waved it in front of me. At this point, I was just more perplexed than scared and started to ask him questions about his life. From our conversation, I learned that he was 17 yrs old, got kicked out of his home, was hungry, had no money and no one would feed him. I don’t know what came over me but I told him I would go get him something to eat. He looked at me, pulled the gun back and told me that it’s ok he didn’t want to do this anymore and simply rode off. Still completely calm, I walked into the building and told the clerk what happened and that’s when she called the cops.”
The client was very confused as to why she was so calm during the robbery and stated that she didn’t know why she was even asking him about his life and offering him food to eat. She felt like it was an out of body experience. We then tried to get an idea of her home life and that’s when she brought up her son.
“He’s six years old, we are in this state all by ourselves. What would happen to me if this robbery ended differently?” She then became reflective and told us about her morning. “You know, I woke up in a really bad mood this morning. I was so mean to my son because he was tired and did not want to wake up. On our way to drop him off at school, I felt horrible and asked him if he would forgive me for being mean to him. He said to me, “ Of course I’ll forgive you mom. If I don’t forgive you then Jesus won’t forgive me.” I was so happy he could so easily forgive me then he added, “You know mommy, last night I prayed for you. I pray for you every night but last night was different. I prayed for you extra hard last night.”
The mother stated that she believes her son’s prayer saved her life. And I firmly believe too.
