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Jimmy Carter: How Prayer Sustained Him

Posted on by alarson

During Jimmy Carter’s presidency from 1977 to 1981, he faced down challenges in the Middle East, Panama and the Soviet Union, as well the energy crisis here in the United States.

It’s all in Carter’s 2010 book, White House Diary, a fascinating collection of the thoughts, observations and candid discussions about his faith that he recorded during his years in office.

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According to Carter, it was the Iranian hostage situation that tested him the most. “I prayed more during that year when the hostages were being held than I did any other time in my life,” said Carter in a phone interview during his book tour. “My prayer was that every hostage would come home safe and free while I protected the interests of my country.” Carter’s prayers weren’t answered as quickly as he’d hoped; the hostages were released on his last day in office.

Carter also relied on prayer during his negotiations at Camp David with Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat and Isreali Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He had so much faith in the power of prayer, in fact, that on the first day Carter proposed that the three lead a world-wide prayer for peace. Sadat agreed immediately, and Begin eventually agreed after the three collaborated on the prayer’s exact wording.

“I don’t doubt that millions of people in Israel, Egypt, in the Arab world and also in America prayed for peace,” says Carter. The Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty was finally signed in 1979.

Carter’s faith was so central to his life that, despite hectic presidential demands, he maintained spiritual practices that were important to him: teaching Sunday school and nightly Bible reading.

Carter began teaching Sunday school when he was just 18 and a midshipman at the Naval Academy—and he has taught ever since. As president, he taught Bible lessons at the Baptist church nearest the White House, though the days he would be there were never announced for security reasons.

In 1970, Carter and his wife Rosalynn began the habit of ending each day by reading from the Bible. They took turns each night reading aloud, and when they were in different cities they read the same passage. Beginning in 2000, the couple read in Spanish, just to practice the language.

Though his faith gave him strength, Carter also found inspiration in the regular folks he met thanks to the human rights-focused Carter Center he founded and his work with Habitat for Humanity.

“We see the bright side of things and the blessings that God gives so many people,” he said.  “I would say the most impressive thing I’ve learned is how similar people are all over the world. A lot of times we tend to underestimate people who don’t have a decent home or don’t have a good education for their kids, who can’t provide for healthcare, or don’t have a regular job. But as we work side-by-side with these people, say, building a Habitat (for Humanity) house, always we find those poor families…are just as smart as I am, just as ambitious, just as hard-working, and their family values are just as good as mine…So we’ve learned a lot about how varied God’s blessings are and how worthy people are and how equal we are in the eyes of God.”

In All Circumstances, Give Thanks

Posted on by Rick Hamlin

Of all the means of prayer, gratitude is one of the easiest. Even people who are not particularly faithful can choose gratitude. At Thanksgiving at our house we usually go around the dinner table and each person mentions something they’re grateful for: good health, great kids, a winning soccer team, the food on our plates, the presidential election, a passing grade in chemistry.

Other virtues can be so much harder to acquire. Tell yourself to be hopeful and if you’re worried sick and biting your fingernails, it’s not going to change your thinking. Tell yourself to be patient and after ten minutes at baggage claim at the airport, looking for your green suitcase among all the black ones, you will be fuming. But “let gratitude be your attitude” is one of those pithy sayings you can actually make happen. It doesn’t take much to train your mind to be grateful. A pen and paper will do.

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Several years ago I worked with newscaster Deborah Norville on an article about gratitude. In her three decades as a TV reporter, she observed, “I’ve always marveled that certain people, even in the face of heart-stopping obstacles and the most difficult circumstances, are able to go forward with smiles on their faces and optimism in their outlooks. How is that possible? In each instance, it comes down to the same answer: They were grateful.”

Deborah believes in actually writing down what you are grateful for, keeping track of your blessings in a journal the way you keep track of your checks in your checkbook. She insists it’s good for your career, your family life, your marriage, your well-being, and she offered scientific research to prove it….

Deborah told me about how she used gratitude to combat a health problem. “For years I’ve suffered migraines,” she said. “I’ve done everything every doctor recommended, but after my investigation into gratitude I tried something new. I made a daily habit of writing down the things that made me grateful. And I started seeing the benefits. My migraines have all but disappeared, my energy has increased and I’ve experienced joy by ‘being there’ for others.”

She called it “Thank You Power” and wrote a book with the same name. Her prescription: Write down three things every day that you’re thankful for. Three things was all, duly noted and recorded. “You need to work on it consciously to make a difference,” she said.

Her advice made sense though I was certain it wasn’t anything I needed to follow. I’m a natural optimist. Why did I need to write down what I was thankful for?….

Am I thankful that I had open-heart surgery? Of course. I am thankful to the doctors, thankful that someone figured out I had an aneurysm before it ruptured, thankful to the nurses who took such good care of me. Without surgery I would not be alive. But here’s something a little harder to explain: I’m thankful for the compassion it’s given me for anyone else who goes through the trials of major surgery. Especially the recovery.

Four weeks out of surgery, I crashed. I felt rotten. I would lie in bed shivering under a mountain of quilts, close my eyes in the hope of sleep, and what came to me was a small dark block in my head. Imagine all your deepest fears pressed down and packed together into a domino that’s lodged in your head. You can’t step around it, you can’t ignore it, you can feel its brooding presence and you wonder if it will explode or suck you into endless night. I could almost locate it near my forehead. I started calling it the black domino, all dark blankness and not a single dot of light….

I lay in bed, watching the black domino warily, monitoring it like the enemy. It was the enemy. Was I going to plunge into a bottomless pit of gloom? Was I going off the deep end?….

Was it claustrophobia? I hate being in closed spaces. In my editorial career there is only one story that gave me the creeps so much I couldn’t work on it. It was about a man who went scuba diving through Caribbean coral caves and came to a spot that got narrower and narrower until he couldn’t get out. He couldn’t turn around and he couldn’t figure out the route that would take him back. His air was running out. Through the murky water and the coral he could see sunlight above but couldn’t reach it.

Fortunately for him, he was able to escape, but that remains my worst nightmare. To be trapped. Maybe my body was still objecting to being strapped down on a hospital bed for hours of surgery, a machine doing the work of my heart and lungs.

“But you’re doing all the right things,” I told myself. I walked around the small park near our house three times a day. I took naps. I ate carefully, filling myself up with protein and iron. I had oatmeal for breakfast and lentil soup for lunch. I took prescription painkillers when I had to. Otherwise two Advil at bedtime and another two in the middle of the night.

“I’m not getting better,” I told Carol.

“Give it some time,” she said. “It’s not going to be a straightforward trajectory. You’ll have good days and some bad days—a few steps forward, a few steps back—but you’ll feel better over the long term.”

No reason why that shouldn’t happen. But I couldn’t believe it and I felt myself unalterably changed. The novelty of being a patient had worn off. The adrenaline of surgery was long gone. I was in the deep slough of recovery and I hated it….

I couldn’t pray. I couldn’t reach God. He was that light above me. I could accept that he was there but I couldn’t get to him. This time it wasn’t enough to tell myself that others were praying for me and doing it on my behalf. Not anymore….

I picked up my battered volume of the New Testament and Psalms and complained, “I’m mad at you, God.” I read from a psalm that was full of rage: “Arise, O Lord; save me, O my God, for thou has smitten all mine enemies upon the cheek bone; thou hast broken the teeth of the ungodly.” I thought it could get me in touch with my anger. But it didn’t make me feel any better…

“You’ve talked about wanting to have a sabbatical someday,” Carol said, looking for the upside. “Maybe you can think of this time as your sabbatical.”

A nice thought, but not one I could put into practice. On the ideal sabbatical my head would be clear enough so that I could read through Proust and Tolstoy and Dante, savoring the greats with the greatest mental agility. I wasn’t up to that. I watched old videos and thumbed my way through the books friends had sent me.

I was a dead weight. I couldn’t clean the house or give a dinner party or even do the laundry. About the only challenge I was up for was writing a thank-you note. That I could try. “Just the kind of thing Deborah Norville would have you do,” I thought. I’d emailed her shortly after surgery, just to tell her what I was going through. She’d responded with a generous prayer. But her “thank-you power” advice? That was still on file somewhere in my head.

I sat on the side of my bed and took out a note card. I looked over at the gifts people had sent. There was a bowl my coworker Celeste had given me for my oatmeal, the perfect thing. But why write her? I would see her soon enough back at the office. I could say something then. She wouldn’t be expecting anything from me.

No, I needed to write it down now, all my gratitude. I would forget it in a couple of days. I scrawled a few sentences. At once there was an inner ping, as sure as the clanging of a bell: “Yes, that’s right. That’s you, Rick. That’s who you are. That’s where you want to be.”

I was hungry to be grateful, desperate like a starving man seeking food or a thirsty one crawling across the desert for water. It was almost physical, holding a pen in my hand and opening a blank card, my mind looking for words to describe a kindness. Thankfulness was the one thing that would keep the black domino from sucking me up and absorbing me. Thankfulness expressed in very specific terms.

I wrote another note and another. Thank you for the card, thanks for the roses, thanks for the burritos from FreshDirect, thanks for the bottle of wine, thanks for the friendship, thanks for the postcard that made me laugh, thanks for the CD, thanks for the phone call, thanks for the prayers, thanks for the visit, thanks for the email.

I could hear myself as I wrote. I could feel stirrings of faith even if I was writing nothing about my faith because I was participating again in the goodness of the world. Sitting on the side of my bed and writing was my therapy. Later at church someone said, “I can’t believe you sent me a note thanking me for my note.” How could I say that the note I sent her was vital to my recovery?

Prayer is communication and this was essential communication. Our friend F. Paul had sent me a slew of witty postcards over the last month, every one of them a gem. One day I picked out a dozen of them and made a silly collage of the images to send to him as thanks. Back at ya.

I couldn’t pray the way I was accustomed to, but writing thank-you notes—something so mundane and yet so profound—was my prayer. I could connect to my spiritual core. I could do battle against the inner darkness pulling me down. I could linger in the light.

In a matter of weeks I sent seventy-five thank-you notes and postcards. I hope I never have to read them. I’m sure they were inane or over-the-top or even illegible. But they were a godsend to me. I could wait, pen in hand, and tell myself, “I don’t really have anything to say,” but once I started writing, all sorts of things came out.

Gratitude wasn’t far beneath the surface. It was just waiting to be expressed. I’m amazed that I actually had seventy-five different people to write, seventy-five people who did nice things for me. But once you start looking for things to be grateful for, you end up feeling grateful in the most cosmic way.

For me it was a way to reclaim the turf I longed to inhabit and it kept me from sinking into godless despair. It was many months before the black domino disappeared—I can still conjure it up like a phantom in a Stephen King novel. But I had found the tool to banish it, one I still use.

Be thankful in all things. Write them down. Even if you don’t feel grateful, even if you can’t pray. What you write will be your prayer. Feelings you can’t force, faith is not something you can necessarily talk yourself into, but thankfulness you can. All it takes is a pen or a pencil and a scrap of paper. You can write to yourself, you can write to a friend, you can write to God. Put your gratitude down, even at the worst of times. Especially then. What you say will lift you back up.

How to Pray Your Way Through Christmas Stress

Posted on by Bob Hostetler

I remember reading a survey about holiday stress a few years ago when everyone around me was in the thick of addressing cards, buying gifts, scheduling visits, decorating, buying groceries, baking, going to holiday parties and so on.

The feedback indicated overwhelming stress around spending extra money. And moms felt extra stressed by all the cooking and cleaning and trying to make sure the family was having Christmas fun.

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Stressed yet?

You’re not alone. But there’s hope; there’s help. There are ways to pray through the stress and anxiety and stay centered—even serene—amid the swirl and chaos of the Christmas season.

Remember the story of Mary and Martha from the Bible? Luke reported it in his Gospel:

As Jesus and His disciples were on their way, He came to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home to Him. She had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet listening to what He said. But Martha was distracted by all the preparations that had to be made. She came to him and asked, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!”

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:38-42, NIV).

We can be sure that having Jesus visit in her home was a very special occasion to Mary and Martha. But their different approaches can help us pray through the busyness and stress of our own special occasions. We may identify with Martha. Her preparations were probably good stuff: making beds, sweeping floors, putting some bread in the oven, maybe spraying some air freshener. Good stuff. But not necessary stuff.

But look again at the account and tell me who was stressed and who was serene. And notice too what Jesus said to Martha, as the NASB translates the phrase, “Only one thing is necessary” (Luke 10:42a, NASB).

So it is in our lives. In our holidays. Our celebrations. Many things would be nice, even good. But only one thing is necessary. So, to reduce holiday stress, choose one necessary thing.

It’s so easy to want our holiday season to be perfect. Perfect decorations, perfect atmosphere, perfect gifts, perfect meals, perfect parties. And we end up like Martha.

Choose one necessary thing each day: Pray. Sit at Jesus’ feet, even if only for a few seconds or a handful of minutes. Press pause. Calm yourself. Breathe deeply. Focus on Him. Listen to Him. Speak to Him. Discover the difference a focus on Jesus can make.

One. Necessary. Thing.

How to Pray on Valentine’s Day

Posted on by Bob Hostetler

Valentine’s Day—and the week or two leading up to it—can be a challenge for many people. For those who are happily in a relationship, it can involve agonizing card and gift decisions (candy again?). For those unhappily in a relationship, it can cause deep pain. And for those who are searching for love, every heart, cupid,and love song can make them feel even worse.

But there is a way to celebrate Valentine’s Day that doesn’t depend on or add to your relational (or financial) angst. It is beautifully simple and uplifting: Prayer.

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But not just any prayer. Oh, no. I suggest praying the Bible’s famous “love chapter,” a short depiction of love from one of Paul’s letters to the first-century church in Corinth: 1 Corinthians 13. Here is one way to do it:

God, I know that even if I could speak all the languages of earth and of angels, but didn’t love others, I would only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. I know that if I had the gift of prophecy and understood all of Your secret plans and possessed all knowledge and had such faith that I could move mountains, but didn’t love others, I would be nothing. And I know that if I gave all my possessions to the poor and even sacrificed my body but didn’t love others, I would have gained nothing.

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I want to love well and love all. Please make me patient and kind—not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Let me not demand my own way. Help me not to be irritable. Save me holding grudges. Let me never be glad about injustice but rather rejoice whenever the truth wins out. May I never give up, never lose faith, always stay hopeful, and endure through every circumstance.

Remind me that the gifts of prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will someday disappear, but love will last forever! Remind me that now my knowledge is partial and incomplete, and even the gift of prophecy reveals only part of the whole picture, but the time will come when such things will fade but love will remain.

Remind me that when I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child but grew up and put away childish things—and so, though I see things imperfectly now, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, I will someday see everything with perfect clarity. Though all that I know now is partial and incomplete, someday I will know as I am known by You—perfectly and completely. I will see what truly matters and what lasts forever: faith, hope, and love—especially love (based on 1 Corinthians 13 in the New Living Translation).

You may pray it differently, which is okay. You may focus on some verses and not others; that’s okay, too. But praying the Bible’s “love chapter”—especially around Valentine’s Day—can work wonders. It can focus your thoughts and feelings far better than the best Hallmark card. It can lift your spirits more than flowers or a movie. Most importantly, it can help you focus on what truly matters and what lasts forever: faith, hope, and love. Especially love.

How to Praise God, Just Like Mary

Posted on by Rick Hamlin

It was one of the most memorable church Christmas pageants. The young, unprepossessing girl who played Mary was walking down the center aisle and suddenly came into her own. Reciting Mary’s prayer of praise—the Magnificat as it’s called—she didn’t skip a beat.

“It must have been the Holy Spirit,” I thought, those matchless words and the courage of that 13-year-old playing the part. This time of year, as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s wondrous birth, I find myself mulling over Mary’s prayer. Praying with her.

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My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior (Luke 1: 47). I’ve never had a miraculous experience like Mary’s, being visited by an angel and told of an extraordinary role to be played.

But I’ve often been in situations that feel completely over my head. Then I have to simply trust that God is with me and that what I’m doing can magnify Him.

For He has looked with favor on the lowliness of His servant… (Luke 1:48). God’s power doesn’t work through us when we brag about how great we are. It comes, as it came to Mary, when we least expect it, when we’re not even sure we measure up. 

There’s no fake humility here. Who was Mary? A young woman in a small town without grand assumptions. Who am I that God should hear my prayer? The humblest of souls.

His mercy is on those who fear Him from generation to generation (Luke 1:49). In our small Bible study group, one of the members exclaimed how uncomfortable the word “fear” makes her in phrases that speak of “the fear of God.” Wasn’t fear a bad thing?

Someone else explained that fear here is more like “awe” or “wonder.” What we feel for a power that is so far beyond anything we can imagine. That word “mercy” also sets it up. God might have inexpressible power, but He exercises it in mercy and love.

He has shown strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts (Luke 1:51). There is a purity in God’s strength. Trusting it keeps me from wandering down the muddled path of relying on only my power.

He has helped His servant Israel…according to the promise He made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to His descendants forever (Luke 1:54-55). Mary is holding on to God’s promises, invoking them in her prayer.

We can do that, too. “God, you promised you’d be with me…God, you know the secrets of my heart better than I know them myself…God, please be with me in that ‘forever’ part of my life.”

It’s easy enough to get caught up in all my worries and anxieties. But then I think of what must have been going through Mary’s mind. Imagine what she must have been thinking after that angel’s visit. She put that aside and was able to sing God’s praise. May I do the same.

Read More—The Story of a Song: ‘Mary, Did You Know?’

How Candles Can Light Up Your Prayers

Posted on by Bob Hostetler

Candlelight has long illuminated prayers of faith. Many of our Jewish neighbors light a candle just before sunset to light their shabbat celebrations. Orthodox and Roman Catholic Christians often light candles as an aid to prayer. Some Christian families and churches mark the season of Advent with an Advent wreath of five candles, the last to be lit on Christmas Day. And candles illuminate many churches on Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, as worshippers sing and pray on those special occasions.

This Advent season, however, I’d like to suggest a few more ways that candles can light up your prayers and help you pray meaningfully:

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Light a candle for focus.

A flickering candle can help you stay focused in prayer. Simply light it (perhaps with an invocation such as, “Come, Lord Jesus, Light of the World”) and gaze into the flame as you pray. You may find it easier to shut out distractions as you watch the candle burn.

Light a candle in gratitude.

The warmth of light—whether a torch, lamp, candle or sunrise—brought blessings of safety, clarity and health to people in Jesus’ day. So, during this special season, you may want to light a candle daily, accompanied by a prayer of gratitude for the blessings you enjoy. 

Light a candle for someone.

There may be a friend or loved one for whom you feel a special concern right now. One way to remember and pray for that person is simply to light a candle and, as you do, ask God to meet that person’s needs.

Light a candle as a reminder.

I know a businesswoman who kept a candle burning on her desk during the workday. Whenever her eyes alighted on that flame, she paused for a moment of prayer. The candle helped her to invite God’s presence and work at regular intervals throughout her tasks. Keep a candle nearby as you work, occasionally prompting a prayer.

Light a candle to spread the fragrance of prayer.

The last book of the Bible depicts an angel mixing incense with the prayers of God’s people: “The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand” (Revelation 8:4 NIV). You might choose a scented candle to enhance your prayers during this season. Like the suggestion above, you may let that candle remind you to pray each time you notice its fragrance.

These are just a few ways to light up your prayers this Advent season. They’re offered in the hope that they may ignite your own creativity and serve as new and meaningful guideposts to prayer.

Good Friday Reflection: The Message of the Cross

Posted on by Pablo Diaz

Growing up in a Spanish Pentecostal home, Good Friday was a sacred day in our family for prayer and reflection. Every Good Friday we spent from two to five in the afternoon in worship at church. We listened to preaching on the last seven words of Christ from the cross and sang the hymns, “The Old Rugged Cross” and “On the Cross Where I First Believed.”

In my earlier years, the day was filled with doom and gloom. As I grew in my faith so did my understanding of the message of the cross. Here is a Good Friday reflection to guide you through this holy day.

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READ MORE: Why Is Good Friday So Important?

Good Friday Reflection

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On Good Friday, the words of Apostle Paul become real to me, “For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.”

Crucifixion was an exceedingly common in antiquity. The Romans conventionalized it as a form of state punishment. For many the death of Jesus on the cross is a mystery; for others madness. For me, the cross expresses the power of an amazing love.

We know from history that in Jesus’ time there were many claiming to be the Messiah but only one wasn’t forgotten…. the One who changed the course of history. On Good Friday the cross of shame, defeat and failure was transformed into a symbol of victory.

READ MORE: 8 Prayers for Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday

What could compel Jesus to give his life, be tortured and humiliated on the cross? Love. In the Bible, we read the words of Jesus in John 15:13, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.” He thought of us above all else, so that we would experience the power of love through forgiveness, the abundant life and external life. The cross of death became the gift of life!

What could compel Jesus to give his life, be tortured and humiliated on the cross? Love.

Today I still miss my childhood Good Friday services and reflection, but no matter where I am, the message of the cross remains the same…God loves us. What does the cross mean to you? Do you have any childhood memories of a Good Friday service? Share your story with us in the comments field below.

Lord, thank you for your amazing love expressed through Christ on the cross. May we experience the power of Your love in our lives.

READ MORE ABOUT GOOD FRIDAY AND HOLY WEEK REFLECTIONS:

Good Friday Day of Prayer

Posted on by sciancanellis

Depending on where you live and what faith you practice, Good Friday—also called Great or Holy Friday—may mean fasting, afternoon church services, a street procession or time spent in reflection and contemplation.

At Guideposts, Good Friday is a day of prayer. For the past 10 weeks, prayer requests have been collected by mail and phone, and online. On April 6, volunteers worldwide will be praying for each and every one of those requests.

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While the Guideposts Good Friday Day of Prayer (GFDOP) marks its 42nd anniversary, each event is unique.

“Good Friday is a good day to offer yourself to others as Jesus did and believe that God can make the impossible, possible,” says OurPrayer manager Peola Hicks. “And I think that as the economy rebounds, we still cannot take anything for granted. People still need God’s power released through prayer.”

This year there will be one chapel service that will begin at 10am to accommodate all of our GFDOP visitors. Visitors will also be able to tour our new museum featuring Dr. Peale memorabilia.

Rev. Hicks says that every year she feels humbled by the prayer requests and the people who volunteer to pray, like Patti Hoppe who has been writing prayers on the web for over 2 years.

“I know that God hears our prayers and am blessed to pray with and for the many requests I read each day” said Patti via Facebook. “It’s humbling and I’m so grateful to be a part of the OurPrayer family. It’s drawing me closer to Him as I lift up each request and I spend more time with Him. Thank you for allowing me to be a volunteer.”

Send a prayer request for yourself and loved ones for Good Friday Day of Prayer.

Flag Day–The Power of a Symbol

Posted on by Rick Hamlin

Flag Day is one of those holidays that often gets lost. Few of us get vacation days from work or school. You don’t find a lot of parades for Flag Day or festivals. Sometimes I forget how important the flag is until some national tragedy occurs and I see it flown at half-mast.

When I was a boy we had a flag pole in front of our house and on certain holidays–like Flag Day–we raised and lowered the flag. My dad, a submarine vet of World War II, was very particular about our treatment of the flag.

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“It should never touch the ground,” he said. When we lowered it, one kid held up the bottom of the flag while another unclipped it from the line. When we folded it we stretched it above the grass, flipping it back and forth so that it would make a tight triangle.

“It’ll burn if it touches the ground,” Dad said.

Did I really believe the ground would burn it? I don’t think so. It’s not like there were hot coals down there, but what Dad was trying to instill in us was respect for an object, not for the object itself but what it symbolized.

Read More: Inspired to Create a Grand New Flag

We take our hats off when the flag passes by–if we wear hats. We salute the flag. We put our hands over our hearts. Flags should never be flown at night unless they are lit or if they are flying over a specifically designated site. We fly the flag at half-mast as a symbol of our mourning.

We have symbols in our faith, the cross the most obvious one. The cross was so powerful a symbol that the Crucifixion didn’t appear in Christian art until several centuries after Christ’s death.  The memory of actual crucifixions was too fresh in early Christian minds. To stare at a cross was to stare at a violent death.

The American flag is relatively recent symbol by those standards, adopted by the Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. Commemoration of June 14 as Flag Day is even more recent, established by President Woodrow Wilson in 1916, 100 years ago.

Symbols by themselves mean nothing. The flag is mere fabric, the cross is a bit of wood or metal. But when we let a symbol stand for something we honor the better parts of our human nature. When we say the pledge of allegiance “to the flag,” we are reminding ourselves of the values it represents.  We do the same thing when we reverence the cross.

So when you see the flag today, pause for a moment. If you’re wearing a hat, take it off. Put your hand over your heart. Say a prayer for “one nation under God with liberty and justice for all.”

Hats off. It’s Flag Day. 

10 Favorite Thanksgiving Meal Blessings

Posted on by Sabra Ciancanelli

On Thanksgiving, millions of Americans will gather together with family and friends and give thanks for their many blessings. Saying grace before breaking bread is a wonderful family tradition to kick-off the celebration of gratitude. Here are some favorite Thanksgiving meal prayers that your family and loved ones might like to share.

Thank you for the food we eat…

by Grace S. Arnold

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Thank You for the food we eat
Our homes and families and those we meet.
And thank You for each good new day
And for Thy kind and loving way.

Lord, behold our family here assembled…

attributed to Robert Louis Stevenson

Lord, behold our family here assembled.
We thank Thee
For this place in which we dwell:
For the peace accorded us this day,
For the hope with which we expect tomorrow:
For the health, the work, the food and the bright skies that make our lives delightful,
For our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers …
Let peace abound in our small company.

Christ our God, Bless us Your servants…

from Prayers for Grace

Christ our God,
Bless us Your servants,
Our home, the food and drink before us,
For You are the Source of all blessings,
Now and forever and ever. Amen.

Bless us, oh Lord, And try Thy gifts…

from Common Catholic Prayers

Bless us, oh Lord,
And these Thy gifts
Which we are about to receive
From Thy bounty,
Through Christ, our Lord.
Amen.

Lord Jesus, Be our holy Guest…

by Marci Alborghetti

Lord Jesus,
Be our holy Guest,
Our morning Joy, |
Our evening Rest
And with our daily bread impart
Thy love and peace in every heart.

Dear Lord, Bless this food…

from The Book of Common Worship

Dear Lord,
Bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies
And us to Thy service.
In Christ’s name we pray, Amen.

Heavenly Father, hear our thanks…

by Kathryn Bowen

Heavenly Father, hear our thanks
For thy love and care;
Help us all to show our love
And each blessing share.

For each new morning…

by Ralph Waldo Emerson

For each new morning with its light,
For rest and shelter of the night,
For health and food,
For love and friends,
For everything Thy goodness sends.

Palm 10

Make a joyful noise unto the LORD, all ye lands.
Serve the LORD with gladness:
come before His presence with singing.

Know ye that the LORD He is God:
it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves;
we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture.

Enter into His gates with thanksgiving,
and into His courts with praise:
be thankful unto Him, and bless His name.

For the LORD is good;
His mercy is everlasting;
and His truth endureth to all generations.

Dear Lord, We consider ourselves rich…

by U.K. Nichols

Dear Lord,
We consider ourselves rich beyond words
For having you as our Lord,
Our friend and now our honored guest.
Let all this fill our hearts with joy, praise and thanksgiving.

What Thanksgiving meal prayers will you share with your family and loved ones this year?

Easter Awakening

Posted on by 26096pwpadmin

My alarm went off at 4:30 a.m., as usual. I took a peek out the window. The weatherman had been right. An icy rain fell over the Great Smoky Mountains. The roads would be bad today, no doubt about that.

I shaved, showered and gave my still-sleeping wife, Natalie, a soft kiss on the forehead. Two mornings a week, I’m up before Natalie. This was one of them. She could sleep in a little till she had to take our youngest daughter, Chelsea, to Smokey Mountain Elementary School.

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I was at Elders Superette, our family-owned convenience store on Highway 441, by 5:30 a.m. Plenty of time to open the pumps and get the coffee going for the commuter rush, or our country equivalent of it.

In the window I hung a “Live Bait” sign that Natalie had made for me. The colors were in vivid lavender, Natalie’s favorite. She uses it every chance she gets.

I was prepping another round of coffee a little after seven when two ambulances and a fire truck shot by outside, sirens shrieking. That’s a sound that will get anyone’s heart pumping.

They were headed in the direction of Smokey Mountain Elementary School. Probably a wreck, I thought. Hopefully it wasn’t anything too serious.

Natalie would have dropped Chelsea off a few minutes earlier.

I turned the radio to the police scanner: “Asheville, this is Cherokee. We need a medical chopper at 441 by Smokey Mountain Elementary School.”

A chopper! That didn’t sound good. Choppers only flew in from Memorial Mission Hospital in Asheville, 60 miles away. They wouldn’t make the trip for anything but a really serious accident. How would they land in this mess?

Right then the telephone rang. It was Alice Pressley, our pastor Ned Pressley’s wife. “Dewayne,” she said, “I’m on 441 by Smokey Mountain Elementary School. Natalie’s been in a wreck.”

My hands trembling, I dropped the phone and rushed outside. I was locking up the pumps when Pastor Ned pulled into the parking lot.

“Alice just called,” he said, hopping into my car. “I’m praying, Dewayne, I’m praying. Let’s go.”

Through the fog, the telltale flashing red lights came into view, then the shocking scene: A big Ford pickup had T-boned Natalie’s Nissan Sentra, completely crushing it from the driver’s side.

I jumped out of the car, suddenly unsure of what to do next. Where was Natalie? Not still trapped in the twisted heap of the Nissan?

Someone grabbed me. I was told she was in the back of the ambulance already. EMS techs crowded around her. One of them—a guy I know—stopped me before I could get to her.

“We’re doing everything we can, Dewayne. Chopper can’t land because of the fog. We need to get some fluids into her before we take her to the hospital.”

I raced over to Smokey Mountain, ran in and pulled Chelsea out of class. Then I called our other daughter, 17-year-old Brittany, on my cell.

“Your mom’s been in an accident,” I told her, keeping my voice level. I didn’t want either of the girls to hear the fear in it. “We need to meet her at the hospital.”

We got to our local hospital minutes after the ambulance. “She’s getting a blood transfusion,” a doctor told us. “We’re sending her on to Memorial Mission in Asheville by ambulance soon as we can.”

The girls and I were silent, but I never stopped praying all the way there. I knew the girls were praying too. I wanted—needed—to believe that Natalie was going to be okay. That’s what I kept telling myself every last mile to Asheville.

By the time we got to the hospital, a heavy snow was falling. It was thundering too—an eerie, ominous sound.

“It looks like she’s bleeding internally,” the doctor there said to me. “We want to do exploratory surgery to check for any internal injuries.”

Soon family and friends started to arrive. I have never been shy about talking to God, and as I sat in that waiting room, I poured my heart out to him.

“All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,” it says in Matthew. I felt like I needed a physical reminder of that promise. So I wrote it down on a piece of paper and slipped it into my pocket.

Finally the surgeon came out. “Her pelvis is broken, she ruptured her spleen, broke a lot of bones and there are a lot of smaller injuries as well,” he told us. “But all of that can heal. The real question is whether her brain was damaged. A CAT scan will give us some answers.”

“You can go into the post-op room and see her now,” a nurse said to the girls and me. “But just for a minute.”

I tried to keep on staying strong for the girls. The last thing they needed right now was to see me cry. But it was hard.

My wife lay amid a mass of bandages and tubes. And I could see that her head had been badly cut. I took her hand and whispered into her ear, “The girls are still young. They need their mother. I need you too.”

That was all the time we had.

Then, good news. It seemed that our prayers had been answered. Natalie’s CAT scan came back clean.

“It doesn’t look like she suffered any brain trauma at all,” her doctor said to me. “With any luck, she should wake up by tomorrow.”

That night, the girls and I drove to my parents’ house back in Whittier, 50 miles south of Asheville. Another half-dozen miles and we would have been home, but none of us could bear the idea of seeing our empty house with all its reminders that Mom was gone from it.

“Don’t worry,” I told Brittany and Chelsea. “Mom will wake up tomorrow, just you wait and see.”

But she didn’t. The doctors ran an MRI, which shows a lot more detail than CAT scans. The news was bad—just the reverse of what we’d heard the day before.

“There’s been trauma to the brain,” the doctor told me. “It could be irreversible. We just don’t know at this point.” Then he took a breath and looked me in the eye. “We don’t know if your wife will ever wake up,” he said quietly.

My mind spun and I gripped the chair until my knuckles whitened. This couldn’t be happening. Not to Natalie, who was bursting with life. Not to her family, who loved her more than anything in the world. And not to me, who couldn’t imagine the world without her.

On Palm Sunday, three days after the accident, Pastor Ned called on everyone in our church to spread the word about Natalie’s condition. Prayer circles sprang up all around the state and beyond.

I tried to stay positive for the girls and they in turn did their best to be upbeat.

“Mom’s going to be fine,” Chelsea said time and again. “Just wait and see.”

We were always careful to be extra-positive at Natalie’s bedside. The girls talked about school and their friends. We read aloud from the cards that were streaming in from all over. We hummed “Amazing Grace,” my wife’s favorite hymn.

But we couldn’t tell if she heard us or not. No smile, no words, no squeeze of the hand. No sign of life.

Natalie’s niece Courtney brought a stuffed floppy Easter bunny for her, a bright lavender one. Pastor Ned brought an anointed prayer cloth and we pinned it to the bunny.

“Mom’s favorite color,” Chelsea said. “I can’t wait till she sees it.”

How could I tell her that that might never happen? How could I prepare them for something I couldn’t imagine myself?

Good Friday came. Natalie had now been unconscious for more than a week. The head surgeon called Brittany, Natalie’s mom, Nelda, Natalie’s sister, Angie, Natalie’s niece and me together.

“I need to be absolutely frank with all of you,” he said. “Natalie’s chances of coming out of the coma at this point are about one in a million.”

It was as if all the air had suddenly gone out of the room.

“Is there any other hope?” I asked finally. “Anything at all?”

“Yes,” the doctor said seriously. “Divine intervention.”

The meeting broke up and we headed back to the ICU to stand a vigil that seemed increasingly hopeless.

Of course, I still had that piece of paper with those words from Matthew that I’d written out on the first day of our ordeal. “All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.” By this point, it felt like they were written on my heart itself.

I put my head down and prayed a Good Friday prayer unlike any I had ever prayed. God, on this day Jesus put himself into your hands, unconditionally. I am doing the same. If it’s your will, I know you can bring Natalie back to us. If it isn’t…

Thy will be done.

Easter morning. The girls and I were driving from my parents house to ours to wash up before our return to the hospital. My cell phone rang. It was Angie.

“Dewayne,” she said, “Natalie’s awake!”

The girls and I forgot all about washing up. I floored it for Asheville. We rushed into the ICU. Natalie lay just as she had when we’d left her the evening before, even down to the prayer shawl and bunny that were nestled on the sheets beside her.

But Natalie’s eyes were open. Beautifully, gloriously open, taking in this Easter morn.

We all gathered around her bedside. Brittany leaned in and gave Natalie a wink. Natalie’s right eye fluttered back. Then Brittany puckered her lips, blowing her mom a kiss. Natalie puckered her own mouth slightly.

I leaned over and ever so gently kissed her forehead.

Word flew around town, and more friends and family arrived.

“What’s Natalie’s favorite hymn?” a friend from Natalie’s job asked.

I told her.

Halfway through “Amazing Grace,” a tear ran down Natalie’s face, like a drop of God’s grace itself.

There are things that just can’t be explained by medical science, only by faith. What happened to Natalie, I believe was surely one of them.

And I’m not the only one.

One of the doctors was very straightforward with me afterward. “This is none of my doing,” he said. “This comes from a higher power.”

This Easter is the third anniversary of Natalie’s accident. Today she is fully recovered. But none of us in the family will ever be the same. I don’t think anyone who was in that hospital room that Easter, or during the weeks that led up to it, or anyone who knows Natalie and what God has done for her, will be.

As for me, on those mornings when I’m up before her, I still always give my sleeping wife a kiss before going to work. I linger now sometimes, knowing just how much a kiss can mean.

Download your FREE ebook, A Prayer for Every Need, by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale

Did Gift Wrapping Start with the Wise Men?

Posted on by Rick Hamlin

Haven’t sent all your Christmas cards yet? Still need to get a present or two for someone on your list? Have no yearning to take the tree down for a while? 

Don’t worry. Christmas isn’t officially over yet. The traditional 12 days of Christmas start on Christmas Day and they’re not over until January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany that marks the arrival of the wise men. 

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You know the story, of course. “Wise men from the East” followed the star from their homeland far away–possibly Persia–looking for the newborn king. 

They stopped in Jerusalem where they met with the nasty King Herod and consulted with his chief priests and scribes to learn where this new King would be found.

They continued following that star until they reached Jesus in Bethlehem. Overcome with awe and joy, they gave him the gifts they had brought with them: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Because there were three gifts we generally figure that there were three wise men although no number is given in the Bible. There could have been three…there could have been more.

What we remember about them is that they were gift givers, and in giving our gifts we honor the first gifts ever given at this season.

It’s also interesting to note that the wise men didn’t simply plop their gifts on the ground but offered them in treasure chests. The first Christmas boxes? The predecessor to gift-wrapping? It’s fun to think so.

Fortunately the wise men were warned in a dream not to return to monstrous Herod, and they went home a different route. Similarly Joseph and Mary and Jesus escaped to Egypt to avoid Herod’s wrath. 

In many countries gifts are not exchanged until January 6. So just in case you thought it was too late…fret not. You’ve got time yet.

The word “epiphany” means recognizing the true nature of something, seeing it for what it really is. The wise men knew what they were seeing in Bethlehem. Would that we could be so wise.