Dismissing or Diminishing Prayer

 

 

I am a professional prayer. Yep, the primary way I make my living is praying for others. So it wasn’t too unusual when my hair stylist asked me to not tip her and instead pray for her husband throughout the holiday season. I did stop for a moment and wonder if she would have made the request to a lawyer to write a brief as her tip or request of a mechanic to change her oil; but prayer is often seen by people as something anyone can do (which they can) and so the request wasn’t too strange. I paused for a moment, knowing I would be saying yes and this yes would mean I would be actively praying until I knew the prayer was complete within me.

“Yes, I’d be happy to pray for your husband, tell me more,” I said as the next foil scrunched in my hair.

“My husband gets really depressed this time of year,” she whispered, looking around so no one would hear. “He recoils and retreats and becomes paralyzed at times. He has so much pain from being estranged from is family.” She went on to tell say, “And I wonder if being poor at Christmas and not having gifts as child adds to all of his funk.”

That night in my evening prayers I began my practice speaking words of joy for him. Knowing the Presence of God is Joy and that by definition, he is too. The following morning I was led to pray for the Light of the season made manifest as and through him. Then Love, Self Expression, and more. Each day the prayer took on a different direction until I was done and knew it. The feeling tone of the energy had changed in the prayer field. I was complete.

I returned after the holidays for my hair cut and color. I inquired about The Husband and his holiday experience. She told me he had a true Christmas season transformational story. He realized his family was his family and stopped fighting it energetically. He accepted what is. Then he met a family at his work with several small children  without the financial means to make a Christmas. He then became their personal Santa and delivered a tree and gifts transforming his understanding of Christmas from what he didn’t have to what he could give. Christmas was no longer a dreaded season; it became his favorite. He is on fire with the power of giving and was already planning Christmas 2014. Then she said to me, “I don’t know if it was the prayer; after all it was my husband who chose to change.”

Wow, there it was. The dismissing and diminishing of prayer. I needed to hear this, as I forgot how often I used to do it myself.

God, The Presence, works through us; Its creation, in order to be known. It can be no other way. OF COURSE The Husband had to say Yes to transformation; that’s how It works. God is a distant idea until we open and operate from Its qualities: Peace, Love, Joy, Expression, Givingness, etc. and through this opening we become changed. Did prayer have something to do with it? I believe so. I believe in the power of prayer, so much so I have a prayer practitioner who prays for me continually. I would have it no other way.

Happy 2014 my friends. Keep praying,