There are a few memories that the words “just pray” stick out in my mind…

I don’t necessarily remember this because I was pretty young, but I’ve enjoyed hearing my mom tell the story. Growing up, when I got in trouble I was sent to mom’s room to wait for her, given a spanking, and afterwards prayer and hugs. Being a strong willed child, this routine had become very familiar to me. One day I had done something disobedient, and my mom sent me to her room. When she arrived to give the spanking, I said, “Can we just pray?” Of course my mom couldn’t refuse. Then followed a prayer of desperation from a child not wanting to be spanked, “Lord help me!” Not wanting to mess up my understanding of God, my mom decided to bypass the spanking, so I guess my prayers worked!

The second time that comes to mind right now is more recent. When I was in preterm labor with Savannah, they had given me medicine to relax my muscles. Well this caused me to be extremely hot! Then to further try and stop the contractions they gave me another medicine that made my mind race. They hung a bag of IV fluid that had been refrigerated which made me shiver inside. All of these feelings wrapped together-made me want to crawl out of my skin! I was hot but freezing, relaxed but racing-and there was nothing that could be done about it. My mom noticed my tossing and turning, and came to the rescue, “Honey what do you need?” All I could say was, I don’t know mom, JUST PRAY! She prayed and the next thing I know I’m drifting off to sleep.

In high school, I had what the doctors thought was appendicitis. Because my mom knew the surgeon, they decided to delay surgery until the next day. In the middle of the night, I awoke with worsening pain and nausea (both signs that it really was appendicitis!) I laid back down and started to cry because I knew that they would probably have to do surgery. My mom said, “Let’s just pray”. I then fell asleep listening to my mother’s prayers. When I awoke in the morning, the pain was gone! The doctor’s couldn’t say what was wrong, they just knew that it was no longer a problem.

My heart is heavy-my grandpa is in the hospital and no one seems to know what is wrong. He suddenly lost use of his lower extremities a couple of months ago, and he is quickly becoming a mystery to the doctors at Vanderbilt. My sister-in-law found out that her brain tumor is back and is growing. So here she is facing yet another (third) surgery to remove it, time away from her boys, and all the fears and uncertainties that come with it. I find myself at a loss of knowing what to say or do, so I’m asking you for one thing…

Just pray!