When we brought my daughter home from ER on the night she broke her arm, my husband voiced the question I was thinking. "Who should we tell?"
I thought about our options. Call my parents. Send a What's App message to all my siblings. Group text everyone at church.
"I don't feel like telling anyone," said Ed. "It feels like begging for pity."
"I know. But we won't be able to hide her cast, so everyone will know eventually."
"If we announce it now, at least we'll get prayer."
So we did. We typed a few words on Ed's phone, and we had a rush of encouraging messages and, hopefully, prayers.
Since then I've been thinking of the times we are reluctant to ask for prayer. In this case I knew that our friends wanted to support us, even if sometimes in the last year our family felt like the prayer request that won't go away.
But I know from talking to others that there are some needs that are rarely if ever shared as a prayer request.
Cancer may be an easy prayer request.
There is a firm diagnosis; no doubt that a real malady exists.
Everyone has been touched by cancer in some way. No one says, "Oh, that isn't so bad." Or "It is just in your head." Or "If you would just..."
There is no shame, because, in most cases, a cancer diagnosis is beyond your control.
But what about relationship difficulties, emotional struggles, marital conflict, in-law problems, or financial challenges? How about abuse, wayward teens, emotional breakdowns, unfaithful spouse, infertility, or church splits?
In my experience, there is so much pain that we don't talk about in our prayer meetings. I've sat at prayer meeting feeling like we were avoiding the elephant in the room. It is easy to ask for prayer for my sick neighbor. Much harder to ask for prayer for myself for my own areas of temptation.
I know there are many good reasons, such as not hurting others, that we don't ask for prayer for the things that are heaviest on our heart. But what if we started with ourselves and asked for prayer for the areas that we have personal need? What if I asked for prayer that I'd be more consistent in my Bible reading? Or was a more patient mother? What if I admitted that I was struggling to forgive?
What if our churches were a safe place to ask for prayer for the hardest things? Not just cancer and broken arms but for broken relationships and sick hearts? What if we knew we'd never be gossiped about or had our story repeated? What if we knew that we'd not be analyzed or criticized but be carried before the throne of God?
What if the Church loved hurting people like Jesus did?
Just a few thoughts on my mind the last weeks, partly because some of you have blessed me by sharing your hearts with me and asking for prayer.
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