“Prayer is not asking.  It is a longing of the soul.  It is daily admission of one’s weaknesses.  It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart.”

– Mahatma Gandhi

Today is one of those days when our souls long to be able to find the words that would allow us to ask.  We do our best to express what our hearts long for — good outcomes, healing, protection –but in the end we can only hope that God will know the best outcome that lies beyond our wildest dreams.  Before the day is over, our grand-nephew, Connor, will be in the operating room.  There, a skilled surgeon will use his expertise and experience as he removes a tumor from the pituitary gland of an eight-year-old.  Those of us whose children have been healthy and without the need for such treatment shudder as we imagine what his parents feel as they prepare their son — and themselves — for such a frightening day.  We wish we could know exactly how they feel so that we could offer more support; but in the next breath, we are thankful that we don’t know and can only imagine.

We search for just the right things to say or do; and once again, we are reminded of our limitations — of our human condition — and we open our hearts in longing and prayer to the One who created us all.

Dear God,

You know our hearts — the longing, the fear, the sadness, the hope, the trembling, the weakness — all the things we speak and all the things we cannot put into words.  We hold in our hearts and minds an image of Connor, happy and healthy and strong and carefree, and we long to see that image become reality.  You see the hearts of everyone involved — the child, the parents, the family, the friends, the doctors, the nurses — and we trust that you will hear the longing for the healing of a little boy whose life has been interrupted by a tumor.  Wrap him in healing and bring him safely through the challenges of today.  It is said that when one person is healed it heals the whole world.  We pray that Connor’s healing will bring healing and hope to others, too, and that through his experience the world will be healed.  Amen.

Perhaps we should be offering these prayers daily; because somewhere in the world, each day, there is a family struggling with the illness of a loved one.  Maybe this is how the healing spreads.  Through the experience of pain we learn compassion, as we grow in the understanding of the feelings of others that we feel again when we see them struggle in the same way.  Perhaps this is the way the world is healed.  For Connor, the healing will be a physical one.  For the rest of us, as we grow in compassion and understanding, the healing will be one of the spirit.  We thank you, God, for Connor and for his courage and for his healing.  We ask that the healing we gain through this experience will increase our compassion and awaken our love for all who suffer.  Amen.