Difficult Seasons

A big Aha! occurred to me yesterday during one of my visits with a hospital patient.

I had been visiting for quite a while with a woman, recently diagnosed with an aggressive type of cancer, and with her husband.  We had talked a little about the disease, but part of what was going on was that they hadn’t received a final diagnosis and treatment plan from the doctors yet, so there was anxiety about that.  And of course they were both still in shock that this was happening to them.

It was interesting that during the conversation, I’d ask the wife a question to give her the opportunity to talk about how she was doing with all of this, and before she could get started good, her husband would jump in and divert the conversation.  I could tell that she wanted to be able to tell me, and I could also tell that her husband didn’t want to see the pain that she might express — the purpose of his interruption.  So we talked lightheartedly about what was going on.  And he kept doing the same thing.

So as our visit reached the time for prayer, I looked to the woman, and saying her name, asked, “I want to know what you would like to pray about.”  And then I made eye contact with her husband to make sure he understood, and he did.  And here’s where the aha! came in:  when she hesitated a moment, I asked, “What is the one thing that is your biggest concern right now, the one thing we can pray about?”

Immediately, and with a voice full of emotion, she said, “Being able to deal with whatever comes.”

She had just named her biggest fear, the thing that she was struggling with most at that moment.  And the emotion in her voice told her husband and me how important that fear was, and how important it was to her to be able to say it out loud.

So that fear was what we prayed about, thanking God for His presence, and asking His help in dealing with whatever comes.

It’s a great privilege to pray with someone, and I want to do it in a way that honors both God and the person I’m praying with.  So I made a mental note to ask more often about the one thing people would like to pray about, the big thing they’re struggling with at that moment.  Praying specifically about the one big thing may be more meaningful for someone than praying about several more general needs and desires.

Tags: cancer, Fear, prayer

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 26th, 2009 at 3:24 am and is filed under hospital visits. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.