A Moment of Prayer

I grew up Lutheran – I was sure good at praying.  I figured at least half an hour of prayer each day should do the trick.  Prayer was very something on my “To Do” list each day, even as a child (yes, those of you who know me will not be surprised that I began the use of To Do lists as soon as I could write).

When I was seventeen, my parents separated.  This was almost as painful for my 79 year old Norwegian grandfather as it was for me.  He took me outside on his porch and as we gazed out on the river he told me not to worry – he knew, with certainty and conviction, that my parents would get back together and it would all be OK.  He knew this because, in his 79 years on this earth he had prayed every single day, and in those prayers he had never asked God for anything; he had only said prayers of praise.  He had been saving his “asking prayer” for something big, and he used it on this – he had prayed that God would never let him see the day when his beloved son and daughter-in-law would no longer be married.  I breathed a huge sigh of relief, as I knew then that my life would again be righted, because I believed in his prayer.

My grandfather passed away from a sudden heart attack on Memorial Day, three days before my parents’ divorce was finalized.  If that doesn’t knock the prayer out of a kid, I don’t know what does.

I stopped praying then.  I went to college, got busy and then busier, and convinced myself that prayer didn’t matter.  I got a half hour a day re-opened on my schedule, now that it was not filled with my compulsory prayer.  I married, had children, and felt my life was very full . . . until that day that I realized my children were growing up without a church family to surround them and love them . . . and without prayer.  And so we found Bellevue First.  Coming back to church was like coming home again, and I fell in love with the congregation and with our pastor. 

By now my family and my career had continued to grow, and life was good.  Chuck and I ran our software company that had almost 80 employees when the 1-2-3 economic punch of Y2K, 9-11, and then the recession hit.  We were no longer making it as a company, and we had to do a company layoff.  I agonized over it for weeks, made myself literally sick with worry and guilt, and finally, on the day it had to happen, literally cried for hours.  Some of these people had been with me since I started out, almost 10 years before.  And it was awful.  This was a Friday.

The following Sunday at church, during prayers Pastor Harvey prayed for those who had been laid off.  And then he said the words, “and God bless those who had to do the laying off.”  I will never forget that feeling in that moment – that prayer being said by Harvey, and held in the hearts of our whole congregation, gave me a sense of peace and comfort that I had never known.  That prayer was said for me; I knew it and felt it.  I asked Harvey about it years later, and he remembered that prayer.  Those of you who remember know that Harvey wasn’t one for ad-libbing, but this was a prayer that came to him as he was talking – it had not been in his notes. 

That was maybe the first day I really prayed – not as a To Do item, but as a feeling, an emotion, a lifting up of the spirit, to heal and to be healed.  When this congregation holds you in prayer, know that this is not meaningless words; this is holding you in our hearts, loving you.   When your name is in our bulletin or is said in the prayers, you are held in our hearts and surrounded by our strength.  When we have our moments of silence, we are all holding each other in those prayers.

I pray again.  Not like I used to, off a list.  But in my thoughts, in my breathing, and maybe especially in my writing.  In connecting with others, and with God, I have found my prayer.

Sara Gillam