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Prayer changes things

Adele Tuff

It was my first cross-stitch project, small and fairly simple – a white dove hovering gracefully beside a three-word caption. A vine of miniature flowers trailed from the dove’s beak and flowed around the words of the caption: “Prayer Changes Things”. My mother would love it!

Cross-stitch by Adele Tuff

Cross-stitch projects are not for action-and-adventure, need-results-yesterday types. I began months before Mom’s birthday. Most of my evenings were spent squinting, threading, rethreading, counting and sewing X’s. Leaving the lettering until last, I finally poked and prodded the needle through the caption. Those three innocent-sounding words began to intrude annoyingly into my everyday thoughts, even when I wasn’t working on them. “Prayer Changes Things.”

Funny, it hadn’t changed the fact that my precious grandma had died when I was a teenager, or that my mother had been chronically ill for many years, or that after four grueling years of the hardest undergraduate degree program at the university, I never made medical school. What about world peace or the millions of starving children in the world? These were all things I had prayed fervently for at some time over the years.

Anyway, I prayed my mom would like her birthday present. Sure enough, the finished project brought exclamations of joy. (Of course, it could have been the ugliest thing in the world, but, as long as it had been fashioned by my very own fingers, it would instantly become an heirloom.)

My labour of love was proudly displayed on the small wall immediately opposite my parents’ front door. No one could miss it when they walked into the house. Those three words would jump right out, grab me and irritate me every time I went there. I decided to escape their grasp by using the back door instead.

Eventually, I moved on to bigger and better cross-stitch projects, and that confounding caption was stashed in the bottom drawer of my consciousness.

Life was humming right along when a very prominent member of our church and best friend of my parents was suddenly struck with cancer in the prime of his life. His family was devastated. My parents were devastated. The whole congregation was devastated. Although I wasn’t what you would consider “close”, nevertheless I was caught up in the devastation all round.

Everyone began praying fervently. I began praying fervently. The cancer spread rapidly, and in a few months this dear man was dead. The devastation was all consuming.

His widow was understandably beside herself. I went to the funeral and paid my respects. I gave her a hug and felt the iceberg tip of her pain. I prayed for her. I took over a homemade fruit basket and sent cards on a regular basis. I told her I was praying for her every day – and I did. Sometimes I would forget one day and felt terrible, so I would pray twice the next day.

Time marched along. Her wounds began to heal. She ventured out again, and life eventually resumed. My husband and I bought our first house in a remote area of our city. It was far enough away to necessitate finding a new church a little closer to our home.

When the day came to leave our church, surprisingly, one of the things that affected me most was the realization that I would miss the lady who had been the object of my prayers for so long. Even though we had never socialized or spent much time together, I felt like I was leaving my best friend. Here now was a special lady whom I had shared a burden with and become close to only through prayer.

She sent flowers to welcome us into our new home. When each of our three children was born, she sent a special gift and touched our hearts with her thoughtfulness.

Had my prayers saved her husband or erased her pain? No they hadn’t. Something was definitely different, though, because of my prayers. I no longer needed to skulk in through the back door of my parents’ house. Now I can eagerly burst in the front way and admire my handiwork. Prayer changes things.

Adele Tuff is a member of Highland MB Church in Calgary.

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Last modified December 11, 2000.

© 2000 Mennonite Brethren Herald.
Published by the Canadian Conference of MB Churches.
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