Praying Woman

I am a praying woman – 63 yrs. old – and my answer to everything I’ve faced is to start with prayer – and to use prayer to bring peace in the midst of terrible storms.

In my life I have faced three C-sections – Kik was my one normal delivery – our last baby was in ICU for the first three days of her life – my daughters have had broken bones – sat on broken Coke bottles – had enlarged livers with all the tests involved in that – gotten severely stung by a Portuguese Man O’ War jellyfish – we have moved 18 times – lost everything and started over several times – I have had emergency gall bladder surgery and was in the hospital for 10 days – had my shin bone biopsied for bone cancer and that was six weeks of living with the fact that I might have bone cancer and I didn’t – four daughters sick with the chicken pox without a lot of money to buy medicine – going through the teenage years with four daughters – husband sometimes unemployed – husband who smoked Pall Malls and had emphysema and had to have carotid artery surgery and quad bypass and I was with him for 12 days in the hospital in Charleston and brought him home safely from there – came home at lunch time on the 22nd day and found him – he had died during the morning after we had talked on the phone and fortunately ended the conversation laughing and saying I love you to each other.

There is more, of course – but I sit here in what I consider my perfect for me townhouse and I look back at everything and know that there is no way I could have survived without God in my life and I don’t mean the God that some people think of as the go to church on Sunday, white gloves, carrying your Bible, smile plastered on your face phoniness – but – the God who says to me –

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.
Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.
For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.” Matthew 11:28-30

Several times in my life I have gone for counseling and one time the counselor said to me that God wasn’t someone with a big yellow legal pad checking things off for and against Claire – but – God was someone who was holding out His hand to me wanting a relationship with me – and when I read my Bible – especially the New Testament – and pray – I can feel His arms opening wide to me as I run to Him and His peace in the midst of terrible storms of loneliness, death, anger, terror, illness and frustration begins to come over me and permeate me and I would make it through another day.

So I encourage you – as you face the “dailyness” of your life with all the problems and decisions you will be going through to pick up a Bible (like The Living Bible version) – turn to the New Testament and just try reading Matthew, Mark, Luke or John – and pray and ask God to show you what He has for you – I can’t explain maybe logically or theologically how it works – but I can stand and look you in the eye and tell you that He is there and He is ready to meet you.