The Power of Prayer

   

  The ringing of the phone woke me from a delicious afternoon cat nap.  I hadn't slept well the night before, and after an extremely busy work week, I'd decided on some shut eye to revive. 
      It was a friend from church asking for a favor.  She had an anonymous monetary gift for a struggling family at our church and asked if I would deliver the card it was enclosed in.  This would be a person I'd never met, but she gave me a brief description of the woman and mentioned that her son might be "greeting" with us that night.
     Once a month, my husband and I help out in our church.  Greeters are people who stand at different doorways, either the outside doors or inside the auditorium, and give a smile, word of encouragement or help someone find a seat, welcoming newcomers and making them feel warm and at home.  This was to be our night helping out, and both of us weren't feeling as eager as we usually did since  it had been an unusually rough week at work. Here I was faced with a task not wanting to let my friend down, but a little grumbly at having to find a woman I'd never met before.
     Now, you have to understand one thing.  Our church is huge.  On average, there may be hundreds of people walking through our doors.  This would be like finding a needle in a haystack.  My plan was to inquire to someone in our "greeters" special room, if they knew who the family was and would they be kind enough to send them to the door my husband and I would be standing at.  I had serious doubts that I would be able to really find them.
     My friend delivered the card to me before we left for church.  Her overwhelming goodness and kind heart made me ashamed of how I'd been feeling before she arrived.  The recipient of the gift would be a woman who was going through some extremely rough financial times.  She hadn't been to their bible study in a while unable to even put gas in her car.  It was my friend's desire to give this woman some much needed help, but to not let her know where the gift came from.
     It lay heavy on my heart to pray about this and I asked my friend to pray as well.  Pray that I would really be able to find this woman, to bless her with such goodness.  Even on the ten minute drive to church, I didn't talk much with my husband, continuing to pray for God to intervene.  In the stillness of my heart I heard, "Things that aren't possible with man, are possible with God."
     We arrived at church, entering a side door we didn't use much.  For such a big church, nobody was walking around this particular area but  I saw two people standing a little down the hallway speaking to one another, a woman and teenage boy.  Something inside me said:  "This is the family."  I asked my husband to continue walking ahead of me and let our group leader know we had arrived.  Then I shyly walked up to the people and asked if they knew who this particular family was.  Both of their mouths dropped open and they stared at me as if I was crazy.  "Are you them?"  I asked.  "Yes," they said.  I handed the card to them and said someone wanted to bless them.  After hugging them, I walked away incredulous.  In a church with a congregation as huge as ours, I had not only found the right party and specifically known it was them, but they were the first and only people I'd seen as we walked through the doors.  Two people I'd never met before.
     Never underestimate the power of prayer.  I believe God answers prayers, especially when it blesses someone else.  The fact that my friend and I had both been praying for the same thing, the fact that this would be an enormous blessing to someone, God intervened in such a supernatural way.  There are no coincidences.  Only the true power of prayer.
   

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