A Hope and a Prayer

Hope and prayer were the inspiration for this sweet collage.

“Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul

And sings the tune without the words

And never stops at all.”

Emily Dickinson, American poet

“It is said that the darkest hour of the night comes just before the dawn.”

Thomas Fuller, English churchman, Author, Historian

A woman I barely knew, and I, started meeting at 5:30 AM to pray in the room above her garage. My life from that moment on would never be the same. At the time there were very deep needs in our families and things did indeed feel very dark to me.

“Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.”

Victor Hugo, Les Miserables

We were raying for answers for family members and other concerns. Six months later, a house on the same street came for sale by the owner and we miraculously got it. This enabled my dad to live with us during his last years of life. It moved us 1 mile from our church and 8 houses down from my new friend who prayed. The lives of people we were praying for started changing and miracles were happening, but the most startling thing that happened was the change inside me. Winter, Spring, Summer and Fall came and went for 4 years and we kept meeting at 5:30 AM and all the while, my own heart was changing and softening and opening to knowing God in a way I never knew possible. I learned to let go of what I wanted and wished for and to trust that if God didn’t want me to have those things, whatever He did have was better. For me, learning to pray, was not about singing the right notes, but it was about learning love the song God wrote for me more than the song I was writing on my own. It was about loving God more than I loved the idea of any of my prayers being answered.

“Hope is being able to see that there is light despite all of the darkness.”

Desmond Tutu, South African Anglican cleric and theologian

I could not possibly list all the answers to prayer we saw come about, but I can tell you that we serve a God who hears the prayers of His children. He is our hope and he makes beautiful things in us when we hope in Him and pray. Through life and death situations and heart conditions, in spite of us and our failures and flawed prayers, God faithfully heard and answered. Lives changed. Losses came followed by blessings. Hard hearts became soft. Many of the answers came in unexpected ways and some of those have been the sweetest.

One of the sweetest gifts through that entire season of morning prayer was the faithfulness of that precious praying saint who taught me to pray and was a friend to me when I was convinced I didn’t need one. Turns out, I did and I’m so grateful.

“You are never too late to prayer.”

Nancy Gibson, Author NancyGibsonWrites.com and WooHoo! The Joyous Response to Following Christ.