An inspiring life story #1 - when we don't underestimate the power of prayer!

Hi everyone, let me share you my readings about true to life stories on the mystery of prayer.
These are stories of how people overcome life circumstances all because they pray. There’s an undeniable and invisible mystery to its power. We sometimes downplay it, or even devalue its critical importance.

Prayer, we sometimes think, is a good idea only in theory—if only it would actually make a difference. But let me start with this verse in the Bible that shows what God is telling us. And for me this itself is the mystery He wanted us to uncover.
He said in Jeremiah 33:3,
"Call to me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and hidden things which you have not known."

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Robert Louis Stevenson's prayer

Give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we may be brave in peril, constant tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and in down to the gates of death, loyal and loving to one another.

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This was the prayer of Robert Louis Stevenson a Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, musician and travel writer. His works have been admired by many other writers, and someone even said that he "seemed to pick the right word up on the point of his pen, like a man playing spillikins". Yet all his life he battled death due to poor health.

He had weak chest when he was young, so his family often needed to stay in warmer climates for his health. Stevenson inherited a tendency to coughs and fevers and exacerbated often when was six years old. But the tendency to extreme sickness in winter remained with him until he was eleven. It was his nurse, Alison Cunningham (known as Cummy), who cared for him tenderly in illness, reading to him the Bible as he lay sick in bed and telling tales of the Covenanters. Though illness would be a recurrent feature of his adult life and left him extraordinarily thin, it was prayer that made him survive.

Once confused and became an "Atheist"

Stevenson's parents were both devout and serious Presbyterians, but the household was not strict in its adherence to Calvinist principles. His childhood nurse, Alison Cunningham, was more fervently religious then. Her Calvinism and folk beliefs were an early source of confusion as a child, and he showed a precocious concern for religion.

Thus one time in his life he had come to reject Christianity and declared himself an atheist - leading to a long period of dissension with both parents. Yet it was his father who never surrendered in Prayer, and had him discovered the truth back - and made him realized!

"What a damned curse I am to my parents! As my father said "You have rendered my whole life a failure". As my mother said "This is the heaviest affliction that has ever befallen me". O Lord, what a pleasant thing it is to have damned the happiness of (probably) the only two people who care a damn about you in the world."

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An enemy waging war on our soul

This all are mystery of the power in prayer! Make no mistake, this is a war! Beyond the fact that life itself can become overwhelming, even sapping our spiritual vitality, there is a more pressing culprit that threatens to marginalize our prayer life: We have an Enemy waging war on our soul. We are in the fight of our life. A very real Enemy has been strategizing and scheming against us, assaulting us, coming after our emotions, our mind, and our future.

Mary Verghese

Mary Verghese was born in a prosperous family in India. She had her graduate training in medicine and was aspiring to specialise in gynaecology when while on her way to work she was injured in a road crash that resulted in complete spinal cord injury. At the age of 29, she became paralysed from the waist down .

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But this didn't hinder her to become skillful and expert surgeon. She could sit on her wheelchair and operate on the hands of people with Hansen's Disease. She was among the earliest physician in India, pioneers of Physical medicine and rehabilitation in the country.
She even said,

" I asked God for legs but He gave me wings."

In fact, she returned to India to head the department of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Christian Medical College, Vellore. Headed the first fully functional physical rehabilitation unit in the country. She was even involved in providing rehabilitation services primarily for persons with spinal cord injury, leprosy, and brain injury.

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Her awards

In recognition of her contributions to medicine, in particular, to the field of physical rehabilitation in India, Mary Verghese was awarded the Padma Shri by then President of India, Shri. V.V. Giri in 1972. She was also awarded the World Vision Award in 1985.

She firmly believed that in prayer:

"When what you are asking is not right, God says NO.
When the time is not right, God says: SLOW
When you are not right God says : GROW.
When everything is right God says: GO!"

So why would God answer our prayers?

For me the biggest reason is that we had a relationship with God. We wanted to follow him. And actually listened to what he said. If we believe that God had the right to direct our life, so we welcomed him doing just that!

When we prayed for things, it was a natural part of our relationship with God. We felt very comfortable coming to God with our needs, our concerns, and whatever issues were current in our life. Furthermore, we were convinced, from what we read in the Bible, that God wanted us to rely on him this way. So we can testify to people inspiring stories that may lead them to also pray!

So, be inspired! let's continue to live a life of prayer.

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references:
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Louis_Stevenson
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Verghese
• https://www.todayschristianwoman.com/articles/2016/march-16/dont-underestimate-power-of-prayer-priscilla-shirer.html

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