There was a period of time when I couldn’t pray.
It was the most difficult stretch of my life because I was afraid that if I ever fell to my knees I’d never have the emotional strength to get up again. Sure, I’d been through plenty of stuff; you can’t live more than 45 years and not go through rough times, but so hard that I couldn’t pray? That had never happened and it was foreign for me, so uncomfortable and strange. Yet, as detached as I was from prayer, that sweet, quiet and personal relationship with God, I knew that prayer was the very thing I needed most.
So I talked to my closest friends, told them what was going on. I talked to my husband, John, my sisters, my brother. I asked them to pray for me. And I waited.
Waiting on God to work in my heart meant going through the motions of everyday. I continued to work, lugging the burden of what felt like the world on my shoulders. And one day I was able to muster up a token of a prayer.
“Please, God, put kind people in my path.” Oh what a simple prayer. It was to keep me from breaking down in places like the grocery, drug store or a restaurant. I just wanted to maintain an even keel until I could get home and curl back up in bed for a while.
There is no doubt that God knew it was all I had. I’m an intercessory prayer partner and truly love to pray for others, and it broke my heart that I was not able to pray for anyone or anything.
But no matter how small our plea, God answered that tiny prayer in so many ways.
For weeks I found people pausing to hold a door, picking up something I dropped, sharing a kind word or compliment. It was as if I had a shield of protection from surliness and nastiness. God knew what I needed, and every kind person I encountered was part of His plan.
Even the kid who would otherwise never have noticed a middle-aged woman in a parking lot.
The teenager pulled up in a tall truck, and in doing so, bumped a shopping cart into my car. The kid got out of his truck and immediately apologized. He was as sweet as could be, making sure that I wasn’t upset. He was truly sorry to have bumped my car with that buggy.
By the time he finished apologizing, I realized that God was busy lining up an army of kindness, and this young man was the flag bearer in front of the troops.
One after another, day after day, little acts of kindness changed my heart bit by bit.
And after some time — I don’t recall how long — I found myself in fervent prayer once again. That familiar, blessed place that I never, ever want to be apart from. And in all of that strife, I found that while life has no guarantees, God does.
And He is in the business of answering prayers, no matter how tiny and insignificant they may be.
Kathy Bohannon is a Port Wentworth resident. Her email is kathybohan@yahoo.com.