DO NOT DISREGARD THE POWER OF ONE SMALL PRAYER
I blinked my eyes a few times to focus on the stark white
surroundings and the bright light above my head indicating that I was in a
hospital. Questions started flowing… How did I get here? What happened? As I struggled to get my mind cleared, pushing through
the fog of the drugs I’d been given, I would have little flashes of
memory. I remembered getting dressed for
work. I remembered turning onto a side street…
a loud crash…the breaking of glass… muffled voices of EMT workers…the sound of
a siren. I remembered waking for a moment, realizing I was in an ambulance and feeling
my head throbbing and so swollen from the concussion. Now as I lay here in this
ICU bed trying to put the pieces together, it just didn’t make sense. I dozed back off waiting for the alarm clock
to go off so I could get up and get dressed for work. Surely I had been dreaming. But the pain reminded me I was not
dreaming. With every slight movement there was excruciating
pain in my hips (broken pelvis in 2 places), my knees, my arms, my head – wow I
must have really hit something hard.
As I started to rouse a little off and on, the nurses would
send a family member into the room and they would fill me in on little details of
the accident that landed me here in the Intensive Care Unit. I had over-corrected when my car veered off the
road on the right side and I ended up upside down in the ditch on the left side
which was not quite wide enough for the entire little red Datsun. I was pinned
in and emergency personnel used “jaws of life” to extract my unconscious
body. I guess somewhere en route to the hospital, I would
become semi-conscious enough to give them phone numbers to call my family that
met me at the hospital. I would spend 3
days in ICU and 16 days in the hospital in Nederland, Texas, as my body healed
from the injuries – 2 broken pelvis bones, a broken finger, a concussion, a chipped
vertebra in my neck, 30+ stitches in my elbow, and multiple scrapes and bruises. It was years before I fully recuperated.
And now… the REST of the story…
I had left my residence that morning around 7:20 and my wreck
happened around 7:30. Miles across town, at 7:30 Linda (Gould) Burton was impressed
to pray for this Becki she barely knew.
She stopped her morning activities and called my name in prayer. Linda
and I had only met a few times at the church we attended together. (I was
living in Nederland temporarily while my husband attended college in Houston
and had only been going to Triumph of Southeast Texas for a few months). As
Linda heard of my accident, she filled my family in on her side of the story - praying on my behalf!
While Almighty Sovereign God can control the whole universe
and all our lives without our assistance, sometimes He invites us to participate
in the supernatural. I am not able to articulate this on a theological level by
any means, but I do believe that God allows events to happen where someone
literally intervenes with their prayers to build our faith and to increase our
trust in Him. He allows us to become partners
with Jesus Christ in our prayers. (“…Christ Jesus who died – more than that,
who was raised to life – is at the right hand of God and is also interceding
for us.” Romans 8:34b) I don’t know how it works, but I do know that on
August 4, 1984, a lady who did not know me well was impressed by the Holy
Spirit to intercede for me, and my life was spared in a car crash that could
have been fatal. I don’t question
it! I don’t doubt it! I know it happened just as she said and that
her prayers stood between me and death! The doctor told me that I physically
came within a fraction of an inch of being paralyzed from waist down or dead
from the injury to my neck.
I once thought “Intercessory Prayer” was a special gift for
certain people of great faith or the pastoral team. Sometimes these prayer warriors are called
Intercessors, but all of us can pray for another person and be the intermediary
for their answer from God. Intercession
is merely intervening for another at possibly a time when they are not even
aware that prayer is needed. I was driving
routinely to work preparing for a busy day… and boom… out of nowhere, an
accident happened. There was no time for prayer as my car flipped into a ditch
and I was knocked unconscious. But thankfully
somebody on the other side of town heard the Holy Spirit calling my name to her
and she stopped her busyness to call my name to the Father! She did not have time to call a prayer
meeting with her ladies’ group. She did not take time to call the Pastor and tell
him to pray for me. There was no time to go and light a candle in the sanctuary.
No, she prayed right then and there. How
awesome!
Fast forward 35 years later… This weekend (February 8, 2019) I got to meet
Linda again after all these years and hug her and tell her how much I
appreciate her praying for me that morning!
My aunt had a 90th birthday party celebration in Nederland
and I got to spend some time with Linda.
What a blessing!
James
5:16, “The effective fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.”
Note: it doesn’t say, a “long and eloquent prayer." Or a theologically correct dissertation.. Or any rituals. Nothing wrong with those prayers if they are
sincere. And when we know of a long-term
need, we use every method we can to combine our faith. There is a time and
place for all kinds of prayers and prayer groups. But that day for me, all it took was just an EFFECTIVE
AND FERVENT prayer by one woman of faith.
