Prayer is one of the major tenants of the Gospel. The ability and opportunity to converse with God is something that is central to earthly existence. Prayers can be short or long; simple or complex. Regardless, they are a chance for us to build a relationship with our Heavenly Father.
Over the course of the last year, I have spent a lot of time studying about prayer and a lot of time praying. We have had a few big things happen this year and I have been driven to my knees several times in an attempt to make sense of the things happening around me. There have been several scriptures and thoughts shared by our Prophets and Apostles.... and there have been experiences that I have gleaned from others' lives as well. This year, I have really tried to make my prayers more meaningful. I have tried to humble myself enough to be guided in what I should do. I have prayed specifically for others in an attempt to figure out how to serve them and to learn from my experiences. And I think one of the most important shifts in focus this year was when I began to look at prayer as a predecessor for action. When I ask for something, I need to be prepared to do my part.
Making something meaningful means to set it apart and make it special. There are so many things that are going on in our lives. Things we have control over, things we don’t. There are things we need to remember, things that deserve special attention. I am a list-maker. Now, I am not completely governed by my lists; but I find that when I get overwhelmed in my life, one of the easiest and most effective ways for me to deal with all those feelings is to write them down and sort them out. That way, I take control of them and they don’t control me. When I make a list, my actions become deliberate. I am defining the things and giving them value; making them more meaningful. Sometimes, in life, there are a million things flying around and they all compete for my time and attention. When that happens, I get confused. When everything is important, nothing is important. So for me, making that list, helps me to weed out the things that seem important, but in reality, may not be. Meaningful is defined as having meaning, being significant, relevant, important, consequential, telling, material, valid, or worthwhile.
We are taught that we must pray with sincerity and “with all the
energy of heart.” We need to be
active when we pray. We need to have our
ideas and things that we want to pray about; maybe an actual list.
Just like my to-do list, I might make a
separate list for things that I’d like to pray about….. so that my prayer is
not routine. We all have things we say
in prayers, like every time we pray and even though we may always mean them,
the words tend to lose their meaning and we kind of zone out when we pray.
We
all have things we pray for, and they may or may not be the same thing your
neighbor is praying for. A lot of times,
we are asked or feel like we need to pray for something specific. Identifying these individual needs is
something easy that we can do to help give meaning to our prayers.
In 2016, I have had a couple
of experiences that have caused me to pray a lot; and I’d like to share a few
things from those with you. There's a quote by Al Fox Carraway. She says, “Specific prayers
receive specific answers.” And I believe
if we will take the time and make the effort to be deliberate in our prayers,
they will become more meaningful and we will grow in knowledge and
understanding.
So the first example that I would like to give you is my
friend Angie’s son, Wyatt. They live in
Minnesota and in February, Wyatt got sick.
It’s Minnesota, it’s winter, it happens.
Fast forward a week, then two, and he’s still not better, got a fever,
blah, blah blah. They go to Instacare
and do bloodwork, thinking that maybe it’s his appendix. Tests come back, appendix is great…. but he
has leukemia. Over this last year, as I have read about their family's experience and Wyatt's treatment, I have gained a great appreciation for specificity in prayer. This is only one example that I have learned from this year. First a little background...
After some time (like a month) in the hospital, and a very difficult round of
chemotherapy, his ANC (white blood cell counts were effectively zero) and they
had to wait for them to go up before they could take the next step in his
treatment; a bone marrow biopsy. Angie wrote:
Another example of praying for something specific came in the early part of the year, when our niece Jillian was born 10 weeks early. It seemed as though honestly, from January 29th until she went home in April, that we were constantly praying for something specific.
"that she will eat, that she can gain
weight, that her breathing will improve,
that her doctors will be blessed."
I have learned that we
should never be afraid or feel hesitant to ask the Lord for what we really
need; or to ask Him to help us have a better understanding of our needs.
This year, I have really come to appreciate this scripture found in Alma 37:36-37:
This is something that I really need to be better at, and
something that I can honestly say I’ve been working on a lot. Sometimes I find it difficult to let go of
the ideas of the things that I want, and to be open to what my Heavenly Father
wants for me. M. Russell Ballard said,
“As you draw nearer to the Lord, He will guide you to become the best version
of yourself.” What an awesome promise….
and so reassuring.
Another thing that I have really tried to put into practice in 2016 is to remember the needs of others when I pray. I have learned that it is important that I prepare to talk to God. Although he knows me and the intent of my heart and loves me unconditionally, I need to be prepared to accept His
will.
I would like to share a few thoughts from my sister-in-law Holli relative to her experience with prayer this year, as she helped care for Jillian.
First sometimes saying it over and over in your mind is good
enough. When Jillian was born premature, and through the course of her life I
find myself with a constant chant in my mind saying over and over, "let
her live, keep her safe, help her". Sometimes when things happen very
quickly that's all you have time for. Like when Jillian was intubated for 5 days
after her jaw distraction. On day 2 she extubated herself and her airway started
to close; they had just minutes to reintubate her. I know my prayer was
answered then even if all I had time for was "help her live, keep her
safe."
· Second there is power in numbers. I have learned something very
important about myself... I didn't really believe that what I wanted was
enough. Maybe because I have known too many people that didn't get a miracle,
but my faith was too small to think that my prayer alone could make a
difference. So I knew that if I could get many people saying prayers for
Jillian, that Heavenly Father would have to listen. This might be a terrible
way to think about prayer, but I know that my faith was small and that the
faith of many can be big and make a difference.
· And last sometimes it won't matter what we ask, it will always
be God's will. After Jillian's surgery she was intubated with a too small
tube for her airway... which made it very difficult to get out the secretions
in her lungs, which made it difficult for her to expel the CO2. Most babies
should be at a 45 to 50 level of CO2, but Jillian was at a 90 for 12 hours. The
doctors were at a loss on how to help her.
They tried several treatments, and none of them worked. She was going to
die if she continued to stay at these levels. After many, many prayers, she was
still doing very bad. It came to the point of me asking where would we bury her?
Here in PA or back in UT??? During some quiet time, I looked up God's Will in
the LDS library. I found a General Conference talk titled "Fear Not, I Am
With Thee" by Jean A. Stevens . This is also my favorite scripture, so I
began to read it.
· I found out that if Jillian doesn't make it, if she leaves us,
my Heavenly Father will help me get through that. She wouldn’t die and then Him
abandon us but..."Wherever we find ourselves on the path of discipleship,
whatever our worries and challenges may be, we are not alone. You are not
forgotten. We can choose to reach for God’s hand in our need. We can face our
challenges with prayer and trust in the Lord. And in the process we become more
like Him."
· So we decided it was time to tell Heavenly Father it was in His
hands, that we would trust in Him and know that no matter what happened He
would see us through. We got down on our knees to pray and almost instantly we
were filled with peace... but not acceptance. Jillian was going to make it! She
was going to live; we just knew it. Almost instantly she got better... not
perfect but better, and slowly through the rest of the day she continued to
improve.
This was such a strong testimony and such a humbling experience for our family. We were on the other side of the country and trying to lend our prayers in support of this little sweethearts life. Bear with me while I quote myself from April....
"And then to wake up in the middle of the night on Saturday and find out that Jilly's lungs have collapsed and that her doctors have committed the situation to the Lord's hands. Pulling my kids out of bed to pray and feeling that spirit in my home. To feel like we're all united in a common purpose."
What a humbling and awesome experience we had with prayer this year. The biggest lesson I learned this year was that when you make a request through prayer, you need to do all you can to assist
in its being granted. This final step is
crucial; faith without works is dead. If
we ask for His guidance and assistance, He will help us know what to do. I found the following quote by President
Thomas S. Monson that illustrates the process of prayer in action:
“Kneel down to pray, step up to serve, reach out to rescue.”
Over the course of this last year, I have had many instances and
opportunities to exercise this principle.
This thought by President Uchtdorf has become one of my favorites:
·
“When our wagon gets stuck in the mud, God is much more likely
to assist the man who gets out to push than the man who merely raises his voice
in prayer no matter how eloquent the oration.”
President Gordon B. Hinckley said:
“Get on your knees and pray, then get on your feet and work.”
I have come to realize that I spend a lot of time talking about the Lord answering my prayers; and he absolutely will. But
when I ask, I have to be willing to act.
My
testimony of serving others has grown tremendously over the last year. I don’t remember which meeting I heard this
particular thought communicated in, but it has really stuck with me and I have tried to use it as a guidepost in my life.
How
many times do I encounter people in my life who are struggling? People dealing with loss, or sickness or
sadness? In many cases, it is human
nature to sympathize with others and to feel bad for them. These feelings may indeed be sincere, but in the past I would offer help as I walked away “saying, please let me know
if you need anything.” Then I had a realization.... it is incredibly hard for me to
ask for help; surely this could be the case for others. Many times, when we are
struggling, we may not even know what we need. Not helpful, as Matt would say. So, my objective became "see a need, fill a need." Find something that I can do and do it.
Over the course of this year, I have really
tried to be specific when I pray. I ask
my Heavenly Father to help me to know what to do; specifically. And when I get the answer I’ve asked for, I
try to be prepared to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, and do what
needs to be done.
Sometimes things are
hard, sometimes we are stretched and sometimes, the things that the Lord asks
us to do can break us. But, as we
struggle in life, we are made strong. Just as we should pray for something
specific, we should act deliberately, with purpose.
President Uchtdorf said:
“Often the answer to our prayer
does not come while we are on our knees, but while we are on our feet serving
the Lord and serving those around us.”
When I pray for myself, or my family, or my friends…. I
often pray for understanding and humility.
As you might imagine, I am not one who takes direction well. I like to think that I know how to deal with
most of the situations I find myself in, and if I don’t know how to handle it,
I either Google it, or ask somebody what they would do to handle it. Sometimes the answers I get are unexpected
and come in ways I can’t explain or justify; but they come. Sometimes I am asked or expected to do
things that are outside of my comfort zone, and although I don’t know how or
why I am doing them, I know that it comes from the Lord, so I try.
·
That’s what the Lord asks of us; he wants us to be mindful,
to be deliberate and to find meaning and have appropriate reverence for the
things we do and the people we serve. He wants us to try, and then to try again.
One final thought found in Ether 12:27:
“And if men come unto me I will show unto them their
weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is
sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble
themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become
strong unto them.”
I know that when I am willing to approach my Heavenly Father in prayer and ask for His help, that I will get an answer. My job is to get to work.
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