By Linda Cox

If there is anything I can do…

How many times have we said this to another person, probably receiving the same answer, “Just pray for me.”

While we readily admit praying IS something we can do, many of us want to do more. “Just praying” doesn’t seem enough. However, thanks to health problems the last part of 2011, I found out that “just praying” IS enough.

When the doctor told me I needed a brain MRI—words that make even the strongest heart tremble—I knew it was time to activate my prayer warrior friends. What I needed was to be surrounded with a “wall of prayer,” like the one in Wall of Prayer, a song written by Kyla Rowland and sung by the McKamey’s.

As my prayer warriors surrounded me with prayer (and reminded me of that via e-mails, phone calls, visits, and cards), my wall of prayer became a wall of peace. While there was an anxiousness about what the results might be, I also felt an overwhelming sense of peace surrounding me as I awaited them. I knew God had heard our cries.

I read recently that prayer is the place where burdens change shoulders. My burden had been lifted to the Lord’s shoulders by the prayers of my friends. How much harder those days would have been if their prayers had not built that wall of prayer around me.

So now when someone tells me the best thing I can do for them is “just pray,” I know it is.

May we all do our best to pray for others and help lift their burdens to the shoulders of our prayer-hearing God.

[The Lord says] Before they call, I will answer;

while they are still speaking, I will hear. Isaiah 65:24

And BTW—I not only have a brain (much to the surprise of my husband) but it’s “normal” too. Thank you, Lord!