Prayers From Strangers

Recently there was a "day of prayer" over at Jon Acuff's blog, "Stuff Christians Like." This was neat since it was a 'virtual' thing. Anyone could sign up for a one-hour slot and pray for requests that were posted there at the blog. I got in a little late, but I figured, "well, why not put in a request for Janie anyway?" She'd been having a pretty bad day, coughing and just exhausted really.

So I went on and shared a bit about her story, just a few sentences and, well, I admit I paused a bit before I hit "add comment." I thought, "is this dumb? Is this silly? These people don't know Janie. It's so anonymous. So impersonal."

Call me crazy but,
throwing all caution to the wind, I hit "add comment" anyway.

And a while later that day, a neat thing happened. We started getting emails. Good emails. Encouraging emails. Not inundated or anything, but a nice little handful. I hadn't thought we'd get emails, but that's how it works when you are logged in as a 'regular' and not as a guest. You can receive emails. Cool, really.

I guess I shouldn't have been so surprised. I mean, I did put in the prayer request after all. I just didn't expect to hear from anyone. I just thought I'd put in the request and people somewhere in the blogosphere might pray. But there they were: people. Real people. People with names. Like Sara, and Peter. And they were saying that they had been, and were still praying for, Janie. Words of encouragement. From strangers.I really felt blessed. (And, by the way, Janie's energy had improved noticeably by that evening!). I read a few requests and prayed for those lives and stories too. And sent them some words and prayers of encouragement too. It was a good experience.

Here's another version of the same thing. There's this guy Tim from New Jersey. We've never met. He follows my blog (for some reason). And do you know what he said recently? He said he's praying for Janie and me. He said he - well, let me just nab it off his blog: "btw, I sat on your blog yesterday wanting to have words to encourage you and Janie with… as I better understand that you’ve both been on a long road, I am looking to God on your behalf both with joy and tears."

Now mind you, Tim and I have never met. What makes a person pray *with tears* for people they've never met? I'm actually rather stunned. I know we evangelicals like to pick on evangelicals for being so evangelical-ish (hence the satirical blog, Stuff Christians Like), but really, there are some very cool things Christians do too. I love to know that people, even total strangers, approach the Throne of Grace on our family's behalf.

So all of that is to say a heartfelt Thank You to our friends who pray and Thank You to those whom we've never met for praying. You are dear to us and you are a blessing.

Paul had never met the Christians at Colosse. Yet he had 'not stopped praying' (Col. 1:9) for them; he 'suffered' (Col. 1:24) for them and he 'labored and struggled' (Col. 2:1) for them.

I feel like you all have done these things for us...and we are so grateful.

And for those we have yet to meet: well, Someday, we'll have an eternity to get to know one another! And to celebrate how our great God had designed how we could pray for each other as a part of His Great Plan!