Last weekend I attended a memorial service for an older friend. For me, it was a combination memorial gathering and memory test, since most of the attendees were college friends and I had not seen some of them for decades. On the row in front of me was a woman I had met only once, she had married and moved before I met other members of the Hanson family. Her mother, Tana, had been exceptionally kind to Robyn and I when we started attending Faith Baptist, our church when we lived in Missoula, the one where the memorial was being held. Despite being virtual strangers, she was excited to tell me something in a way I recognized because it was the excitement I felt after our God encounter on the road to Rimrock.
Diane told me that her 46 year old daughter had recently trusted Christ as her Savior. She had been raised in a Christian home, even a pastor's home, but was unreceptive to Christ early on and, in later life, heavily into New Age beliefs. But God intervened and she woke up one night feeling as if the tumblers clicked into place and her mind opened to the truth of the Gospel. After 46 years, she trusted Christ as her Savior. She shared the good news with her mother. And her brothers were so excited about her newfound faith that they offered to help her move from Portland, which is steeped in New Age, to Salem, where her mother lives. For a few nights, she was so aware of demonic activity around her, that she slept with her mom. Through the Bible she learned that, redeemed by Christ, she no longer needed to fear demons. Together she and her mother burned hundreds of dollars worth of New Age materials. She plans to reach out to her own daughter when she has grown a little stronger spiritually.
What Diane emphasized over and over is that she didn't DO anything. But pray. She prayed for 46 years, and God opened a hardened heart. There was a reason Diane shared with me besides her own excitement. A divine reason. I pray every Monday with moms of prodigals. We have had some wonderful answers to prayer in the sobriety and spiritual growth of my son and another member's daughter, but some of our prodigals seem to have made little progress. What an encouragement to hear about an answer so many years in the making. When we do not see answers, we want to DO something, forgetting that praying is doing something. It is connecting all the resources of the God of the universe to the needs of our loved ones. He must laugh at our efforts to help him out, the way I do when my preschool granddaughter offers to assist me with household chores. I let her help and then I clean up the mess she made "helping". Diane said her mother was the one who taught her the power of prayer alone. That sounds like the Tana I knew. Diane's husband died four years before his daughter became Christ's, but I am sure he knows now. That does not seem like the sort of news they would keep quiet in heaven. And there they know about the unseen spiritual war waged for her soul and finally won, in part, through prayer.
I told the group if I were involved, the biggest miracle would not be that my loved one got saved after so many years, but that I managed to keep my mouth shut so God could speak to them. Prayer alone is not giving up, it is linking up to the only one who can reach those we love. It is growing our faith by believing God is working even when we cannot see it. Even if it takes 46 years. Even if we die before we see the answer. Our Savior will supply the but God, we supply the prayer.
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