Prayer changes things!

Sometimes God Calms

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We have a Ladies group in our church called Ladies Outreach and our purpose is to do whatever we can to help our church by taking on projects that will add beauty to our church and make it look better to those who come in to worship. We also do things in our community to make people feel better and to encourage them.

Some of these projects might be clean the Mission House (this is a house that the church purchased from a member of the church who died and he wanted to give the church the first opportunity to purchase the property because it is located directly across the street from the church and we did purchase it and designated its use to Missionaries who come to speak at our church) before a Missionary Family comes to spend a few days. Sometimes we have given our church a Spring or Fall Cleaning. We have gone and sang for people who were in Nursing Homes and brought gifts. We prepare meals for those of our members who have been hospitalized. We give baby and wedding showers to those new expectant Moms or Brides.

Every May, we have a Mother-Daughter Banquet with a Guest Speaker. This year our guest speaker was a former member of our church who is in her early 40's with three children. They lived quite a way from the church and found a closer church that was easier on their family travel wise but her sister still attends our church with her family and she is our Organ Player and sings in the choir.

Her name in Ann and a year ago she discovered that she had a brain tumor. She would get so dizzy that she couldn't do anything because she would be sick to her stomach from the nausea. Her doctors planned surgery for her and she under went surgery. The doctors were not sure that she would survive the surgery or whether or not she would have brain damage from the surgery.

She had her surgery and when she came out of it, she knew everyone and seemed to be OK as far as any effects to her brain but she could not talk at first and sounded croaky like a smoker sounds. As time went on, it didn't improve much and she discovered that there had been damage to her left vocal cord and she has lost the use of it. The doctors have given her exercises to do to help her voice and at first, she could only talk at a whisper but now she has the full use of her voice if she talks at a normal range but she can't sing. Her right vocal cord is doing the whole job for her. She can't talk above a normal pitch.

She gave her testimony at this banquet and it was fantastic. She talked about how she had to deal with the fear that she might not live to raise her three children. How she had to take her fear to the Lord and tell him how afraid she was. How she had to trust him for everything. She told how when she was little and after she had her bath at night, she would grab her pillow and take it to her daddy and lay her pillow in his arms and crawl up into his lap and curl up in her pillow in his lap. She said then she knew that she was safe and nothing her harm her. She used that to say that during this ordeal she had to learn to crawl up in her Heavenly Fathers arms and learn to trust Him to take care of her so that she would know everything was all right. She said before she had the surgery she came to that point in her life.

She shared how much everyone's prayer helped her and how much it encouraged her. She said that she had 18 churches praying for her and those were just the ones that she knew about. She shared how people from her church brought meals for she and her family for months on end. They brought meals that you could put in the freezer and take out when you needed them. She told how she could not do anything for herself leading up to the surgery and for a long while afterwards and her church family did so much to help her and her husband cope.

She shared how they brought gift baskets to her once a month and how much those baskets comforted her. She said every basket was different. One had all the things in it to do ones nails (nail polish, emery boards, polish remover, etc.). Another one was filled with kitchen supplies, another was filled with body lotions and such things. She said they kept coming for a year.

She talked how God had arranged that her husband could work in their home so that he could be there for the children and her during this time. He worked for the IRS in our town and the office closed. There were only two other workers beside her husband and the other two were transferred to another City but they told her husband that he could work out of his home and they provided him with a computer. This was a year before they even knew that she was going to be sick so that when that happened, their family could benefit from his being at home to help out.

She said that all she could do was to praise God for all the ways that he took care of her and her family and she has been a singer all her life. She and her sister use to sing duets in our church. And during this time, she asked God to let her be able to sing praises to His Name and she said that He has given her a Song which she hadn't heard of in a very long time and assured her that she would someday be able to sing that song for Him. She says she knows that God will allow her to sing again, she just doesn't know when but that She is trusting Him for His promise to her.

I write this for you to tell you just how important it is that we pray for one another and give encouragement to one another. Sometimes that is all someone has to hang on to during tough times. Prayer works and God has given us the priviledge to be able to pray for strength and help for others in times of need. It is our prayers that heal the sick and lifts others up out of the bondage of sin. So let's keeping praying for one another and bear each others burdens.

"Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." James 5:16 KJV