Julie Shaffer wrote No Call Waiting in July 2005.
No Call Waiting
I was curious how to pray as a child. There was a
drawing in my one children’s book I looked at it. I studied it. The drawing was
of a little girl on her knees, praying at the side of her bed with her head
bowed, hand folded and her eyes closed. I decided that was the right way to
pray. Once my family had gone to sleep, I got out of my bed and prayed just
like that little girl in the drawing. And I prayed for candy each night. I awoke the each and every morning ready for
the answer to my prayers…the candy. I never received the candy.
Not only do
children wonder: “How does one pray?”
Adults can ask themselves the same thing. When I was a hospital chaplain, a
nurse asked me to visit a patient. She said that he had wanted to speak with
me; however, he had never talked with a pastor or chaplain before. I walked
into his room, and we talked. I started
to leave his room and he hesitated and then asked, “Would you teach me how to
pray?” I looked at him and explained, “I
cannot teach you how to pray…there are millions of ways to pray. You can talk
to God; however, you need. There’s no wrong way.”
He then
asked me to offer a prayer. I offered a prayer each day we visited. I was paged
on morning to this patient’s room. I could not figure out why the page. This
man was not dying. I arrived to the room where I found the man fully
dressed…waiting to be discharged. He asked to pray. So I began to offer a
prayer. He squeezed my hand and said that he wanted to give the prayer.
God's Spirit is alongside helping us. As we heard from this
morning’s reading from Romans: “If we don't know how or what to pray, it
doesn't matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our
wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know
ourselves, and keeps us present before God.”
In the Jim
Carrey movie “Bruce Almighty” the scriptwriters gave God a phone number that
Carrey could dial to talk with the Almighty. But instead of using the 555
prefix that movie makers and TV shows generally give phone numbers – they gave
God a 776 prefix.
People who
saw the movie wrote the number down and started dialing it. One lady in St. Petersburg,
FL received 20 calls per hour from people who wanted to talk to God.
Wouldn’t it
be easy if we could dial a number directly to God without busy signals,
answering machines, and call waiting?
It was that
easy for a woman, who wanted to talk with a hospital chaplain, who had a pager.
Almost every Sunday morning between 1:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m., a nurse from a
hospital’s mental health ward would page me. A patient wanted to talk with the
woman who’s God.
All this
women wanted was someone who would listen.
Sometimes we
do not pray out of gratitude. Sometimes we pray if we want something. Sometimes
we pray if we want someone to listen. Sometimes we pray out of frustration.
Sometimes we do not pray at all.
Then the day
comes when we need to pray. We may not be sure how to pray. We may not be sure
if anyone is listening.
I received a
voicemail on day this past May from my mother, who lives in Indiana. My uncle
Roger had a stroke at the age of 56. My
mother’s message repeated over and over, “Your Aunt Judy wants you to pray for
Roger because you know how to pray and what to say.”
I telephone
my Aunt many nights, and we talked and we prayed. I listened. Each time I
called my Aunt my uncle’s conditioned worsened. (Explain condition and good
news call.)
Dear Julie
In the rehab
area of hospitaI. I seemed to getting along ok. They plan to
release me on friday afternoon. I am looking forward to getting out of
here. I guess that I don't rember being her tht first 5 weehs. Judy
has been telling about the tales,(Of course they are probley streacher a
little). I have been very fortination with starting to recover last
Friday. I had lost my right side. When I woke up Saturday
morning it seamed to close to normal.
I am getting
a little tired sold i will quit for now.
My
Aunt sent this letter out a week ago:
After 22
long days in the intensive care unit, 4 days in the neurological unit, and 11
days in the rehabilitation unit, Roger was dismissed from the hospital on
Friday, June 17 and was able to return home. The doctors call his
recovery a miracle.
Miraculously
after 22 days in ICU, Roger started getting better. One by one the life
support systems, gauges, and monitors were taken away. He has all of his
long-term memory and still can run the computer better than me! He also
has kept his sense of humor in tact through all of this!
We know
Roger is still here on earth and has experienced this wonderful recovery only
because of the grace of God. There is certainly no medical reason or explanation
for his recovery.
Bless you
all!
I believe that God hears every
prayer and the honest cries of every person. That means God is even listening
to us when we don't realize we are praying, and when our prayers take the form
of cries or longings, of hopes and dreams, of joys and sorrows and groanings
which cannot be uttered.
Not all of our prayers are
answered. Maybe because we are praying for things we are not ready for in our
lives. Or maybe we are not disciplined in our prayer life. I am not sure why
some prayers are answered and some are not.
However, I am sure that each of
us has a direct line to God, where there are no busy signals, no answering
machines, and especially no call waiting!
Uncle Roger with Julie at the Cracker Barrel in Fort Wayne, Indiana, September 2013.
