friends for whom to pray,
and a God who welcomes every prayer and every pray-er.
So often when I come to prayer, I do a lot of talking -
bringing my praise
and my gratitudes
and my requests to God.
I can talk, talk, talk His ear off with my many words, and he’s good about listening, just another bit that I love about Him. (I thought about saying "for which I am eternally grateful…")
more listening.
I’m learning to heed a quiet Voice,
to pay attention those thoughts that float into my mind, like wild geese appearing through the mist from
...somewhere beyond where I am.
I regularly meet with a group of friends to pray “for the children,” and one morning we were focusing on my faraway friend and her houseful of children –
Grieving children. Lost children. Motherless children. Violated children. Sick children. God’s children.
My heart was stirred as I heard my friend across the table praying for my friend across the globe with intensity and deep compassion. I listened as she interceded for the health of one particularly sick small human, ravaged in body and soul in ways too vile to describe. “We are awash in bodily fluids,” my weary faraway friend had confided a few hours earlier. As my nearby friend prayed, I heard their two voices overlapping. It was a kind of communion of souls.
and I almost missed the message,
one simple word.
“Yogurt.”
Not an audible voice, but unmistakably clear.
“Yogurt.”
I paused mid-thought. “Oh Lord God, Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible…did you say, 'Yogurt?'”
I jotted the word in my undersized notebook beside the day’s prayer list.
I’ve been learning, oh so slowly, to listen for those promptings, to send a card here, to carry a meal there, to connect this person with that one, to initiate a conversation. But – yogurt?
My heart smiled.
”Yogurt…do you have access to yogurt?”
In minutes, from a place so remote even a doctor won’t visit, her reply flew across the miles, “Thank you Jesus.”
…that the least of these are indeed Your dearly loved little ones, and they matter to You.
…that You are in the details, always.
…that You whispered “yogurt” into a quiet place in my heart
…that for this once I was listening!!
holy cow, holy Batman, holy crap…
Mindless misuse has stripped the word “holy” of its sacredness, leaving it tarnished, smudged, and caked with so much muck it’s barely recognizable.
But this yogurt? Oh yes indeed, thank you Jesus.
Holy yogurt.
I got yogurt for raw tummies and it helped a lot. I also found it helped thrush so nicely. (I was) very surprised to see the healing properties of yogurt. I now buy a large tub for all the hiv/arv children weekly. I get the plain one as it seems to work better.
And so I repeat, thank you Jesus.
Holy yogurt. HumminB