The Complexity And Challenges of Praying for Others

"Please pray for me."  - "Please pray for her." - "Please pray for him."

It's an essential refrain of the faithful. The call to pray for each other is echoed throughout the Bible, but perhaps most clearly in James 5:16, "Confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed." Each Apostolic letter is full of examples of the fathers of the Church asking other to pray for them.

Prayer requests seem simple, but I struggle with them because God's version of how a situation should play out is always more complicated and interesting than any version of an outcome that I could pray for. As the Garth Brooks song says, "Some of God's greatest gifts are unanswered prayers."

As a child, I easily prayed for someone to be healed quickly or their life made easier. It's become harder as I move through adulthood and have been forced to realize both in my own life and the lives of others that horrible situations often make people better. These challenges can be essential to our development in faith, love, and humility.

The harsh reality of improvement through adversity is reflected in scripture. In the Old Testament, the Lord describes refining the Israelites through the "furnace of affliction." Isiah 48:10. This message continues on into the New Testament. "Consider it all a joy, my brothers, when you encounter various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." James 1:2-3. 

Similarly, "[A]lthough now for a little while you may have to suffer through various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that is perishable even though tested by fire, may prove to be for praise, glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ." 1 Peter 1:6-7.

Should I pray that someone avoids a situation that could deepen their faith or play an essential role in turning their life around? 

If that prayer isn't answered, does it mean it wasn't heard?

When the situation goes beyond mere personal trials and towards death, simplistic prayers for a continuation of life are complicated by the belief that earthly death is an essential step to union with the Divine Love. 1 John 4:16.

Is it okay for me to pray for the delay of someone's journey to their spiritual destination? What if they are in horrible unending pain?

What does it mean for me and my faith if those prayers aren't answered?

Beyond that, what kind of prayer am I supposed to offer for enemies and persecutors as required by Matthew 5:44? Most of my attempts in that arena turn out pretty selfish, basically backhanded attempts to pray for myself.

Simplest answer that I've seen to these conundrums is a simple prayer described by Russian monk in 19th century Orthodox classic The Way of the Pilgrim and The Pilgrim Continues His Way.

"Merciful Lord, may your will be done; you wish that all men come to the truth and be saved, have mercy and save your servant __________. Receive this petition from me, as a cry of love which you have commanded."

This humble method of asking for divine intervention is applicable to friends, family members, and foes alike. It leaves plenty of room for interpretation on the need and direction of help. It's applicable for both those who are struggling in earth and those on their way out of this life.

Please give it a try. This world is desperately in need of prayer.

Trapped: Focus on the Basics

March 2008

The winds hit gale force levels by the time we finished sledding to the bottom of the canyon.  The snowstorm had become a blizzard.  Dropping a fresh layer of white on top of the four and a half feet snowpack.

Quake Lake was on our left.  It was frozen solid.  Fifty yards from us the ice opened.  Water flowed out of the ice and into the canyon to form the Madison River.  The Madison's first ripples turned into rapids right in front of us.  By fifty yards down river, the water had already developed serious hydraulics.  At that point, the river turned into the canyon and out of sight; but we could hear the rapids beyond that.

Josh Galt, one of the icons of American riverboarding, sat next to me on the icy riverbank fiddling with his camera and putting on his fins.  Josh had ridden whitewater from Norway to New Zealand.  On the way up, he'd told me that he had his eye a potential world record waterfall drop that summer.  Despite all that, it was clear that Josh thought that running a Class IV in freezing temps and blowing snow was probably a bad idea. 

Five minutes later, we were off.  Josh was the better rider and quickly took the lead as we headed into harder rapids.  I followed him over a powerful swell and then blasted through the wave below.  I cringed as my face went through the wall of icy water.  I squeezed the handles tighter and adjusted my hips to track the top of the plastic inflatable board.  Losing the board on this stretch of water in these temps could be fatal.

I pushed fear from my head and focused on finding the smoothest line possible through the crashing hydraulics.  The Madison was much fuller than it had been last fall.  The water rushed through the canyon.  Rising and falling, cascading over icy rocks.  We rose, fell, and cascaded with it.  I was beginning to get into the groove.  Time seemed to slow.  It was perfect timing.  Right as we headed into the S-Curve, the hardest stretch of water on the run.

The roar of the rushing water increased as the canyon opened up to the S-Curve.  I let my eyes linger for a moment too long on the horizon.  The water careened me up against a rock and my board stopped.  My still-moving body pendulumed through the water, wrenching against my shoulders.  I pulled myself part of the way up onto the icy rock.  I tried to peel the edge of the board free.  It didn't move, then the current took me.

I fell backwards off of the rock.  The current pushed that backwards fall into flips.  The world became dark, wet, and icy.  The base of my neck slammed against a rock.  Then my hip.  My arms flailed, trying to pull towards the surface but not sure what direction the surface was.  My face bounced against a rock.

I reached towards the bottom, found a hold, then was ripped away from it by the churning rapid.  I felt death pulling me from below.  I thought of my soon-to-be born daughter as the river sent me cartwheeling into the next set of rapids.  I couldn't die without meeting her.

I focused on the basics.  Let my body slacken to prevent injuries and lower the heartrate.  Every extra beat wasted oxygen.  Short, measured breaths only when I knew my face was well clear of the water.  The desperate urge to breath  and the water-filled lungs that resulted from it had to be fought at all costs.

Time slowed again.  My body bounced against the rocks, but the pain wasn't as sharp.  I snuck a breath every two or three rapids.  I didn't feel peace, but the terror subsided.  Eventually the final turn of the Madison's S-Curve completed and the current released me towards the shore.

June 2011

Rita came in the NAMI Montana office again today.  I could see that she'd had a breakthrough.  Rita didn't look well during her last couple of visits.  She struggles with a combined illnesses of diabetes and bipolar disorder.  She'd really been in a bad place over the last couple of weeks and I was worried that she was going to end up back in St. Peter's hospital's behavioral health unit.

But, something had changed.  Rita's smile was content.  A smile of happiness, not a symptom of mania.

I commented on how happy Rita looked and she beamed back at me.  "I didn't let it destroy me."

I nodded and waited for her to continue.

"We took in a vet last week.  He really got to me.  Well, we got to each other."

"Took in a vet?"

"An Iraq war vet.  He was in our trailer park and needed a place to live.  We knew that it was only right to take him in."

I nodded again.  A small trailer, Rita, her husband, Rita's deathly ill mother, and a homeless veteran.  Why is it that the poorest among us are always the quickest to give?

Rita continued, "It was alright for the first couple of days.  He was like the son I never had.  We had long talks and got along great.  Then we started getting on each other's nerves and it got ugly after that."

I winced, "Did it get violent."  You see a lot in our office and get comfortable asking questions that politer company would dance around.

"No, nothing like that.  Just real ugly on both sides.  I caught myself feeling and saying things that just aren't like me.  It just kept getting worse.  I didn't know where it was going to stop."

She was trapped in the current, I thought.  Two bruised egoes whirlpooling around another.  Each dropping further and further in order to lower the other.  I'd been there too many times.  Eventually, you get to the point that you can hardly recognize your actions as your own.  They've been so twisted by power of battling egos.

Rita put her hands on my desk.  "I went to church and asked God if I should kick him out.  He told me not to.  So instead, I prayed for strength.  I didn't want to end up back on the behavioral unit again."

"That's great Rita."

"So I went home and worked on the little things.  I took walks.  I made sure I got enough sleep and ate right.  I took my medicine.  I prayed and I went to church."

She focused on the basics.

"I couldn't really separate myelf from him because the trailer's so small, but I tried.  Eventually after a few days, we pulled out of it.  I took him to the VA and they set him up with a plan to move to Missoula.  It's better for him there anyway.  Lots of young kids and way more to do."

I agreed with Rita and told her to let the vet know we were here to help him if he got stuck and needed some guidance on where to go.  But I was more interested in Rita and how she'd pulled herself out of the negative relationship.  She went back to the basics.  The simple building blocks of life that we all take for granted.

Rita knew that the best way she could straighten out a complex negative interaction with someone else was to focus on the basics within her control.  It was the same philosophy that had set me free from the Madison's current in the winter of 2008.  I hadn't thought about applying it to interpersonal relationships, thankfully Rita had.

NOTE 1:  Here's a video clip of our riverboarding trip on the Madison. 

NOTE 2: Try out the Looking 4 Answers cell phone app.  It's free on iTunes and the Android Market.  Looking 4 Answers is a personal and spiritual growth tracker that uses a short daily quiz.  Let me know what you think.

 

A French Saint's Prayers for America's Heroes

Note: Catholic’s regularly ask saints to pray for them or others. While this practice isn’t followed by Protestants, it’s fundamentally no different than asking anyone else for their prayers. This is a story about how one of those prayers was answered.

In early March of 2007, our family lost my stepbrother to a PTSD suicide. Chris had been back home from Iraq for about a year and a half. He was a good kid that became a great man, but the traumatic stress injury he sustained in Iraq was too much for even the brave Humvee machine gunner to defeat.

The suicide was precipitated by an Other Than Honorable discharge that he received in the mail. Other Than Honorable discharges are typically given to service members convicted by a civilian criminal court and incarcerated or if the conduct leading to that civilian conviction brings discredit upon the military.

Chris’s only crime was that he didn’t attend his monthly National Guard drills, because of his debilitating PTSD. To this day, it’s still hard to imagine how that discharge ever went through. It was the most damning piece of evidence that our military didn’t have a process to effectively care for its heroes returning home with PTSD injuries.

The most basic question was why hadn’t Chris’s unit sat him and all the other returning soldiers down in front of a mental health professional for a PTSD screening? If they’d identified the injury, they could have directed him towards treatment. Instead, they left it up to his battalion who either missed or ignored the red flags for PTSD and flushed him out of the service.

A few days after Chris’s death, his family stood in his mother’s kitchen and decided to tell Chris’s story to try and prevent other families from having to go through the same tragedy. As a veteran and attorney, I took the lead.

The first week after a tragedy is critical to any effort to force a systemic change from that event. You either harness the wave of media attention that the tragedy inspires or you let it slip by and lose the opportunity.

I spent that week talking to staff of the politicians that could force the National Guard to implement changes in their systems of caring from returning service members. I also talked with the local media. I seemed cut and dry.

I was wrong. The papers came out at the end of the week mourning the tragic death. There was no mention of the discharge, that the military had failed in its duty to care for an injured soldier, or that the system of care could be improved. In short, I failed.

I met with a retired general and another seasoned member of the state government that Sunday. They drew the same conclusion. It was over. The attention would go back to the state’s budget or some other issue and nothing would be done.

I was dejected. I’d failed Chris while he was alive and then again after his death. On my way home, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up a dozen roses for St. Therese of Lisieoux. The little French saint had worked miracle after miracle for our family from curing my grandmother’s infant paralysis to helping me pass the bar exam after I’d spent a summer focusing on the wrong material.

St. Therese loves roses and the only thing I could think to do was to buy her some roses as a way of asking/thanking her for praying to God for a miracle to fix my failed attempt to make something good come out of Chris’s tragic death. I set the roses on the passenger seat of my car and began to drive home. By the time I pulled into the driveway, a barebones plan had popped into my head.

I put the roses on the table. Prayed again and began typing…

I couldn’t have imagined how powerfully that prayer was answered. Eighteen months later, the State of Montana was recognized as the best state for caring for its service members returning home from combat. The foundation for its program was multiple, staged face-to-face mental health screenings for every service member returning from combat. One year later, Congress required a similar screening mechanism be put in place across the military. The Department of Defense is currently working to implement it.

According to the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, the program has the potential to save more lives than armored Humvees.

January of 2009

I walked back into the caboose of the Inaugural Train. Soon-to-be President Obama introduced me to his wife Michelle and told her about some of the things we’d accomplished after Chris’s death.

I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out two religious medals. I gave a St. Michael medal to Michelle and told her to ask him to defend her family.

I handed President Obama a smaller medal with the image of St. Therese of Lisieoux, the little Carmelite nun that died of tuberculosis at the age of twenty-four.

“It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was her.”

End Note: I think it’s important to point out that praying for this does not always fix all of our issues in this damaged world. I know this too well tonight as this is the first night that I do not have my children due to an impending divorce. Prayers are not always answered how or when we want them to be, but that doesn’t change the fact that a miracle occurred after I asked St. Therese to pray for better care for our returning heroes.