Family Room Media

[mr bob]

My dog has his own fan club down the street from where I live. My neighbors spend their mornings in the garage smoking, drinking coffee, and reading the paper. They keep the garage door up, and every morning that I walk my dog, I stop by share a cup of coffee and they feed him dog biscuits and dote on him.

Last week the mother of the family aggravated a previous back injury and was in excruciating pain. Yesterday I went over to pray for her. Her husband was surprised when I asked to pray for her. "I didn't know you were that religious?"

"Well you're right" I replied, "I'm not. But I have pretty good relationship with God so I'm more spiritual than religious, and I've prayed for people before."

I prayed for her and they were genuinely grateful. Their garage door was down this morning which wasn't a good sign. It's odd. I actually wrestled with the decision to go pray for them directly. Its not that I'm afraid to do it, I didn't want it to skew the relationship I had with them. We'll see what happens. I'll keep you posted.

[mr bob]

Well things have actually turned around quite a bit for my neighbors. About a week and a half after praying for them and some aggressive dialogue with her doctor, the mom was able to get an injection into her back to provide real pain relief. She's pretty much back to her normal schedule.

Her daughter's back surgery went so well that she was discharged a day early from the hospital and is recovering nicely.

I learned something new in this experience. It would have been easy to just say I'll pray for you and conveniently not be available until things smoothed over. I had to fight the thoughts of rejection because the answer to my prayer wasn't "instant" or "miraculous".

It was quite disturbing to visit her after praying for her and see her sobbing in pain. But sometimes that's just what a friend does. Stand by someone even if there's nothing you can do to fix the situation.

Back in the institutional church I was well trained on how to come up with some explanation as to why "nothing" had happened in response to prayer. I knew how to defend God's reputation. But now I just know how to stand by a friend and still be the life of Christ to them without explanation or excuses.

[kspain]

Yeah, it's amazing that what we "knew" in the IC now doesn't work and we are relearning God's way. I am just glad to be called out of the false system. I am now not so quick to rush into thinking I know exactly what God would have happen in a situation. The one thing I am learning now is that I do know He said, "love your neighbor as yourself" and how we would be identified is "the love we have one for another" and that has been sorely lacking in the community of believers, or should I say so called believers? Anyway, as a counselor I am beginning to see that all people want and need is an empathetic ear from someone who really cares. It's amazing, that's all? I used to think it must be that they need some great deliverance or a powerful word from God, but that may be the case in a few instances, but I am seeing more and more that it's just Love that is needed. Genuine love, not the put on that we were taught from the I.C. and genuine love can only come from God. So how can we display it if we don't know Him? I pray God grow me into Him like the vine and the branches from John that Jesus talked about. He told the disciples also to "wait in Jerusalem until they were endued with power from on high" before doing anything! What are we taught, go out and conquer the "world". We can't stomp people into believing in Christ, but love does conquer all.