SELAH...

"The prayer of a righteous (wo)man is powerful and effective." 
                                                             James 5:16, NIV, edit BMD
"What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun." 
                                                              Eccl 1:9, NIV

The setting: I go to "Sarah's Place" to pick Karen up to go out for a meal, or to church, or to visit the grandkids; we get in the car and start to drive. What follows is a NSA/unmanned drone surveillance transcript of any one of these jaunts; no date is given, as all of the recordings have almost exactly the same content, at least for the past eight months. Karen = italics; me = [brackets]:

(elapsed time into trip: one minute)
     "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers!"
                     ["Any one in particular that you are thinking of?"]
     "No, just my prayers for other people. God says to pray without ceasing so that's what I like to do."

(two minutes)
     "How is your job going?"
                     ["It's ok. It was really rough this week. Just not enough time to do everything they need me to do."]
     "Well, you are  a gifted doctor and I am sure they appreciate you." 
                     ["I'm not so sure I'm gifted. And I'm not so sure they appreciate me."]
      "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers for your job!"

(three minutes)
     "How is your job going?"
                     ["It's ok. There is one person on my team that I have really struggled to work with. I get upset and lose my witness and then I feel awful."]
     "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers for you!"

(four minutes) 
        "There sure are a lot of birds flying around today!" 
              (This phrase is like a "Selah" in Psalms; may occur at any point in any conversation, always the same, not sure what response is appropriate so I usually make none.)

(six minutes)
     "How is your job going?"
                     ["I think I just need to not try to run everything and get a better servant attitude. Maybe the problem is me."]
     "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers for your job!"

(Selah/Birds)

(eight minutes)
     "How is your job?"
                     ["Actually going ok. I had a chance to pray with a patient yesterday. I think some folks are getting better."]
     "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers!"

(ten minutes)
     "How is your job going?"
                     [OK. It is paying the bills for your care, I am getting to work with some good people, and occasionally I get to share my faith."]
     "I am so grateful that God answers my prayers for your job!"

(Selah/Birds)


You get the picture. Karen's ability to remember any conversation or content is less than a minute, and her abstract sense of being able to detect and respond to subtle meanings in any conversation was lost years ago. Or so I think. 

Karen prays. She can read scripture but can no longer navigate through the Bible, now fully reliant on tabs to help her find Old or New Testament books that she used to be able to find in the dark, and her ability to pronounce the words has regressed to elementary level. Her understanding of theology is childlike. But she prays. I give her a written prayer list, updated weekly, that has family, friends, any issue of importance on it: she prays. I don't know how often, as by the end of the list she will forget that she has prayed for the beginning so will start over. 

I have never heard her pray for her own healing. She will pray for others to be healed (if they are on her list) but her prayer for herself is that she will be allowed to intercede in prayer. 

Things are worse, neurologically speaking. While I still believe the research medication and the activities at Sarah's Place have slowed the decline, she struggles more with simple tasks of identifying types of food, comfort in using any eating utensil other than a spoon, in recalling how to put on makeup or choose clothing. I know this is to be expected, but it is a new pain each time I see her lose an ability that was present even weeks before. 

But I am still learning from her, in the repetitive nature of her prayers and the predictability of her statements; somehow God is using the sameness of her prayers to bring newness to the situations she prays for. I used to get irritated when she would ask the same question five, ten, fifteen times in as many minutes; now, as we enter that same pattern, I start to listen. God may very well be talking to me through her; He knows that on my own, with my own relatively unimpaired memory and need to understand everything, I am just not simple enough to hear Him by myself. I need a helper. 

If you want to be on her list, let me know. I will use discretion about not overloading her, and there is no guarantee that she will even understand the context of the prayer need. But I am not sure that is necessary; she brings it before God, and He knew about it already....

Barney