Prayer

“I prayed for this child, and the Lord has granted me what I asked of him.”
1Samuael 1:27

When I was just six months shy of my third birthday my mother learned that I had a disease called Kohler’s disease. This was the reason that when I would run to play my left foot would turn inward and I would fall to the ground. Sometimes this would happen even as I was walking. I had developed a limp and I had pain in my ankle. My mother took me to the doctor and they suggested that I wear special shoes that would prevent me from falling. Back in 1951 casting was recommended and the duration of the disease was unknown.

I remember going with my mother to look in the store windows in Jamaica in Queens New York and looking at the beautiful red shoes in the shoe store window. My mother said that I used to ask for the pretty shoes, but it broke her heart that she couldn’t give them to me. Instead I wore the typical shoes that a child would wear with a leg brace.

One day my mother decided to go to one of the best hospitals in New York. She took me into New York City to the New York-Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia University Medical Center -The Harkness Pavilion, to see a specialist. She told me that after examining me and ex-raying my legs that the doctor showed her the ex-ray results and then took down a large medical book and showed my mother what the disease was and how to date they did not have a cure. They said that the recommendation was to put me in a full body cast because they were unsure what other bones would be affected by this rare bone disease. It had been a long way for my mother to travel and she said that she had taken my stroller with her through subway staircases and different trains. She took the long ride home feeling despair.

She said that the very next morning something unexplainable happened. She was led to go to a church located on Sutphin Boulevard in Jamaica Queens which was quite a distance away. There was a bus that stopped in front of our apartment and it took us to that church. Once inside, she told me to stand and to ask God to heal me. She said that as I stood there before the altar trusting her with all my faith I asked God to heal my leg. She said that she wept at hearing the innocence in the voice of a child. My voice was little but the power of the Lord is great. She took me back three days in a row. On the fourth day she began to notice that my leg was no longer turning inward. She never did take me back to the doctor again. I have had many pairs of red shoes over these fifty-five years. In fact, as a young woman I walked all over my sales territory in downtown New York to visit clients wearing very high heels. When I lived in New York City I had this very charming apartment but my closet opened up to the living room, so I wrapped my shoe boxes in wrapping paper to look pretty when I had to open the closet while company was there. Each box contained a pair of gorgeous shoes but I had forgotten who I should praise for this luxury.

I couldn’t help but notice the word Hark within the name of the Harkness Pavilion where my mother searched for answers. I looked up the definition of the word Hark and one of them was “a hunter’s shout to hounds, as to encourage them in following the scent, a Verb phrase” I believe that is the way we are led by the Lord through promptings and resources that arrive at just the right time, or perhaps a word from someone we know. God’s shout to us encourages us to be led to where there is an answer to our prayer, a resource that might fill our need.

I lived many years taking it all for granted until I gave my heart to the Lord at thirty-four years of age. It was when I found Jesus Christ that I began to appreciate how he had healed me and given me a mother who knew all about prayer. To this day I know that if I ask my mother to pray for me I am safe in the arms of the grace of prayer. Twenty five years I have been studying the Lord’s Word and now my prayer life is as full of faith as that little voice I had the day the Lord healed me of Kohler’s disease. If you look up the word Prayer it is listed as a noun and the definition says “a devout petition to God or an object of worship.” Prayer is more alive than what the definition would claim and to me it is an action verb.

“Pray to Me in a time of trouble, I will rescue you, and you will honor me” Psalm 1:20-3

I have studied prayer through books, and the Bible and have heard countless sermons on prayer. Nothing reminds me better than what Jesus said “You do not have, because you do not ask God.” James 4:2

We must ask, and as we begin this process and see prayers being answered our faith will become stronger and stronger. Prayer is an action, a verb not an adverb or a noun…a thing or a sweet sentiment found in a greeting card. Prayer is the very tool we can use here on earth to help us through our trials, grief, and circumstances.

If you are reading this today and you need prayer, you can leave me an anonymous comment, a prayer request. I promise you that I will pray for you. Leave your prayer request, because even if you don’t have faith today that your prayer will be answered, I do. I have that same child-like faith that I did the day I stood in that church in front of that altar believing that I would be healed.

“Ask, and you will receive. Search, and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. Everyone who asks will receive. Everyone who searches will find. And the door will be opened for everyone who knocks.”
Matthew 7:7-8

The medical profession has conducted much research over the last fifty-five years, since I was diagnosed with Kohler’s Disease. Today they know so much more than they did then and the harsh treatment has been replaced with an encouraging diagnosis as found on the Mayo Clinic web site. They say that after a few months the symptoms go away. The Lord healed my foot back in a day when little was known about this disease and he removed my symptoms overnight. The Lord heals…

“Everything you ask for in payer will be yours, if you only have faith. And when you stand in prayer, forgive whatever you have against anybody so that your Father in heaven may forgive your failings too.”
Mark 11:24-25