"It felt like angels"

February 4, 2011 by Leave a Comment

February 2, 2011

Pastor Vatel and the community of H.o.P.E draws close around a dad who’s young adult son has passed away. Pastor Patterson says a prayer on behalf of all. See the quilt wrapped around Randy? It’s to remind him and his wife Mary that through their grief, they are wrapped with love and prayers.

We are called to pray for each other. Just in case you have doubts about your worthiness to do so, here’s the text from James chapter 5 reminding us that Elijah, the man of prayer,was a human being just like us. Scriptural Passage HERE.

Here are a few principles* we shared tonight on how to pray for someone who is going through an illness:

1. Sometimes, we’ll tell each other: “I’ll pray for you”. Don’t wait. If okay with them, say a prayer of thanks for this person, and ask for God to bless them with_______.

2. The blank space above leads me to the second point: ask the person what he or she would want you to pray for.

3. Use touch: For example, place a hand on his or her shoulder. Of course, use discretion when praying with someone of the opposite sex whom you are not familiar with. In this case, you might choose to have someone be with you if you’re a woman praying for a man,or vice versa.

4. Don’t interfere with their medical treatment. Even if they were healed, you would encourage them to be checked out by their current physician, and not impose your opinion on their course of treatement. Even Jesus sent the lepers back to the pharisees to be checked out and be cleared officially.

5. Surrender your life to God. Ask for your whole being to be renewed. Surrender the person to God’s will. God’s plan for our ultimate healing is sometimes evident here, but for sure will be completed after this life on earth. One day.

Please see this link detailing Larry and Tammy’s testimony and their first visit to the House of Prayer Experience**. CaringBridge is a free website where people who are going through significant health challenges can receive encouragement from family and friends.

Please feel free to send Larry a note HERE!

Thank you to Randy, Larry, Tammy, Judy, Roxana, and others who opened their hearts tonight, and gave us the privilege of praying for and with them.

Thank you to you for being a House of Prayer…for ALL people!

Inspired and blessed by the gifted voices of Restoration,a local music ministry.

*I’m really endebted to Dr. J. Bauer for inspiring this list through his lectures at Andrews Theological Seminary a few years ago!
**See Tammy’s journal entry dated Thursday February 3, 2011.

Filed Under: caringbridge.org, children in prayer meeting, forestlakechurch.org, grief, intercession, loss

My God, Why Have You Abandoned Me?

May 3, 2010 by Leave a Comment

April 28, 2010

The prayer of Jesus was a question: “Where are you God?” No, He didn’t actually say this. Matthew 27:46 records His words, asking God why He was leaving Him? His cry describes His pain while on the cross. It is a prayer that describes His feelings of alienation from a Holy God because of the effect of sin.

Aren’t there times when our prayers explode into a big question mark? Even as Believers? Haven’t we felt God’s distance or at least His silence or been through a “dark night of the soul”?

A parent confided in me that he came at the threshold of the House of Prayer and couldn’t go further. He was mad at God. He’s been asking God to bring his young adult daughter back. He couldn’t bare to hear how God was answering other people’s prayers while he and his wife cried themselves to sleep because of their “little girl”. “God, why have you abandoned me?” He wondered in anger and grief. He turned around and went home.

Even in His pain, Jesus turned to God and He even used God’s Word. His cry was a quote from Psalm 22:1. The book of Psalms are full of prayers of praise and awe. They also say things that are violent and , well, not very reverent. The Psalms are poems and songs and most importantly, prayers from the heart, and sometimes the heart goes through turbulent emotions and grief.

There is room for joy at the House of Prayer. And there is room for your lament at the House of Prayer.

I heard a story that I never forgot: It was about a Mother who had lost her only son. That mother said that she shook her fist at God when he died, and gave Him a piece of her mind and cried a sea of tears. When she came across this dark spiritual valley and looked back, she realized that she had never severed her connection with God. She prayed, even through her anger.

Remember that father I mentioned here earlier? He and his wife have since returned to the H.o.P.E. They wait in expectation and find strength in the prayers of those around them.

God can handle our disappointments, and our doubts won’t change His opinion of us. Leave these to God, too. Don’t stop turning to Him. God hears your prayers in whatever shape they come.

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the LORD
In the land of the living.

Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD! (Psalm 27: 13-14)

Praying for our joy…and hope for the journey,
-Pastor Sabine

Filed Under: grief, lament, Pastor Sabine Vatel, psalm 22, psalm 27