The Prayer

I sat in the pew behind them, a quiet couple, he balding, she well-made up, hair coiffed, both dressed nice, many decades between them.

The sermon was about new beginnings, this the first Sunday of the year.

Let go of the past. Act in faith. Move forward.

Move on.

The winter wind strengthened outside the little country church. Cold, so cold, the sub-freezing January morning rankled the lonely heart left behind. Sit in a sanctuary. Come inside for a moment. Try to leave the Cold Alone outside.

During the rambling homily the preacher said, “Everyone needs someone,” a toss toward God or friends, family, perhaps one’s exiled self, I suppose.

Everyone needs someone.

The crisply-dressed nice older woman touched wrinkled fingertips to her husband’s tweed suit coat, touched him gently, just them, just then, she thankful for the man who’d sit beside her in church. Fingertips her silent I love you. A delicate silver diamond antique wedding ring shone back at me, twinkled a midnight lighthouse from the row just in front.

This once-was rural county has been a hard place from the very beginning, a confusing place, how some treat others. The preacher prayed, slowly, “Lord, help us begin anew. Lord, let us have a fresh start.”

Lord, hear this man’s prayer.

“I feel moved to pray one more time,” he said, after another song. It brought him back on stage. Eyes down, the congregation heard his question, “If there’s anyone who would like to let something go, get past it, raise your hand. I won’t address you or draw you out, but I want to pray for you.” Several hands went up, judging by his solemn “Thank you,” then “Yes, thank you, sir”. “Thank you too.”

I saw the weathered hand go up, just for a glimmer second, then come quickly down, this man’s wife who loves him as best friend, her life’s mate.

That’s how it looked to me.

What past misty chapter could she have to let go of? They prayed hard, the husband looking down at his bittersweet wife, eyes full of sadness or love or wanting to take whatever burden it was from her.

It hit me at the time. It hits me now, the day-to-day miracles that God plants in this desert to find, if we will but look.

This county was settled by husbands and wives – least those are the historical stories that echo ‘round  my quiet now. Sanches, Mansker, Flannigan, et al.

That husband and that wife were what needed to be seen this morning – a prayer placed where it needed to be.

Blessings accrue to those who never give up. Perfect, no, rocky sometimes, but together faithful to whatever they two set out to do. Whatever comes.

Act in faith.

Don’t lose your nerve. Three.

“Remember not the events of the past, the things of long ago consider not;

See, I am doing something new!

Now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?

In the desert I make a way, in the wasteland, rivers.” Isaiah 43: 19