Faithfulness in Prayer

Angel of God,

My guardian dear,

To whom God’s love

Entrusts me here,

Ever this day

Be at my side,

To light and guard,

To rule and guide. Amen.

Many times while walking home alone in the dark of night from a friend’s house, I earnestly implored my guardian angel to protect me all the way.

When I became a Presbyterian, Pastor Janet changed my thinking and my practices. She said I didn’t need to pray to my guardian angel, any of the saints, or even to Mother Mary. Because God Himself listens for our prayers, we could bring all our petitions to Him.

That was a hard transition. I had been comforted by my conversations with Mary and the others and knew they would intercede for me by passing my requests on to God. For years, I continued to open my prayers with the Sign of the Cross—reverent and relevant still, no matter my denomination—and I kept praying to the Blessed Virgin. But in time, I conformed to the Presbyterian way and began focusing my attention directly on God.

Today, as I was working on this article, I overheard a telephone conversation between a guest in my home and her sister. Their mother was suffering from complications of diverticulitis and was hospitalized like she had been years earlier, when a similar health scare had progressed to sepsis. Kim was worried. She said she would be leaving shortly to visit and sit with her mom for the remainder of the afternoon.

I didn’t know Kim’s views on God, and I didn’t know if she would welcome my prayers. But clearly, prayers were needed. God’s perfect timing was too strong to ignore. I approached Kim and asked if she would like me to pray with her. We held hands, bowed our heads, and simply asked God for what we wanted. Both of us cried tears of hope that God would heal Kim’s mother.

Initiating prayer with people outside my immediate family and close friends doesn’t happen automatically. I hesitate and fail to follow-through much more often than I choose to follow my convictions. Today, it couldn’t have been a coincidence that I heard Kim talking with her sister at the exact moment I was reading Pastor Janet’s sermon, “What, Then, Should We Pray?”

In her notes, Janet recalled a sad situation in which she joined her seminary community in praying for a friend’s two-year old boy who went from playing basketball in the day to running a fever and slipping into a coma at night. The group’s prayers didn’t prevent the boy from dying. Janet lamented and wondered, “What could we pray that would make a difference now?” and “Why, when we ask, do we not receive?”

Janet concluded that we shouldn’t let our indecisiveness, insecurities, or doubts stop us from praying. We have the Holy Spirit—our ultimate intercessor—who will nudge us along in the process. Janet said,

“As we come before God in prayer for ourselves and for other members of our community, we open ourselves up to what God is doing in our lives. As we spend time in prayer, we may discover new ways in which we can help the situation: new ideas about how to approach a problem, or where to go to further investigate the options. When we offer ourselves as a channel through which God can work, we often become aware of promising things we can do for others . . . And so, we must pray—trusting the Spirit of God who intercedes for us according to the will of God.”

If you ever feel uncertain about what to pray for, I encourage you to get something—anything—out for God to hear. Plunge right in with a simple, heartfelt request or first draw close to God with this easy, concise prayer that Janet taught:

I always thought Janet had written those words. After her death, I shared her prayer with children during Vacation Bible School. When my husband Greg and I established our foundation, we printed her prayer on promotional cards. And this year, during Bible Study Fellowship—an in-depth, world-wide program, I volunteered in the children’s nursery. The leaders there had us sing these very same words to the babies and toddlers in our class.

I was surprised to hear Janet’s prayer set to music and shocked to think that she might not be the author. But unable to find out more about the song, I prefer to believe Janet did compose it after all, and it just happened to spread like wildfire.

It could be true. She was that inspiring.