I believe the family I prayed for recently has created something quietly amazing and special and powerful, with their twice-daily online prayer meetings. I believe something beautiful has emerged, born out of pain and sorrow and desperate need.
In those meetings I found Christian community not quite like any other I’ve ever experienced. I’ve attended on and off for months, and finally prayed out loud at one this week. However I didn’t realize until today what makes them so special. Special for me, at least.
The family started these meetings several months ago (January 2021), because they desperately needed, and still desperately need, prayer for a situation very close to their hearts. They needed other Christians to come alongside them and pray with them that God would do miracles in an almost impossible situation.
They were hoping against hope and needed others to hope against hope with them. Nothing is impossible for God, but some things are very hard to hope for. Especially when the world, trying to be kind, is saying “prepare for the worst. We cannot honestly give you any reason to hope. It would be wrong to raise false hope in you.”
All they had was their faith in a miracle-working God. And other Christians were willing to take time out to pray with them.
There’s a neat story in Exodus 17:10-13
So Joshua did what Moses had commanded and fought the army of Amalek. Meanwhile, Moses, Aaron, and Hur climbed to the top of a nearby hill. As long as Moses held up the staff in his hand, the Israelites had the advantage. But whenever he dropped his hand, the Amalekites gained the advantage. Moses’ arms soon became so tired he could no longer hold them up. So Aaron and Hur found a stone for him to sit on. Then they stood on each side of Moses, holding up his hands. So his hands held steady until sunset. As a result, Joshua overwhelmed the army of Amalek in battle.
The family asked people – anyone! – to be Aaron and Hur for them, holding up their arms when they got too tired to hold them up themselves. To pray with them that God would do miracles in their situation. To pray for them on days when they were too sad and exhausted to pray for on their own behalf anymore.
It was hard to tell at first but at this point it is beyond doubt. God has done many miracles already. I think the world has had to concede – this is way beyond what we hoped or imagined. We had no idea this was possible!
There’s a long way to go, so the meetings are continuing, twice a day, and anyone is welcome to come and pray for them and their situation. You can email me at helenmildenhall @ gmail dot com if you want the zoom link.
These online twice daily prayer meetings are quite organized, with leaders, regular attenders and visitors welcome to come and pray at any time. Actually you can attend without praying out loud but, the point of them is, please come and pray with us. For us. We need your help.
There’s an update at the beginning of every meeting about the situation, often from a family member themself. There is often good news to report and sometimes there’s great joy at a miracle that has just happened. Since this is an ongoing situation there are usually specific prayer requests to be prayed for that day. But those who attend are welcome to pray for the situation and the family however they feel led.
There’s often a pre-planned worship time after the update. (I think there is worship unless no-one is available to bring it?) It seems like there’s no age or gender restriction on who leads worship. It tends to be a very powerful, intimate-feeling time of worship as one or a few people pour out their hearts to God. The words of the songs are posted in the chat so people can sing along.
Then anyone is invited to pray. Everyone is muted until someone messages “I’d like to pray out loud” and then the hosts unmute them. I don’t know if there’s a fixed length of these meetings (since I usually leave early for personal reasons). In my experience they usually go for at least an hour.
It’s been a blessing to me that this is a Christian community, in effect, open to all. Strangers are invited in and are welcome to participate: which seems very Jesus-like to me (emphasis mine) –
“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ (Matt 25:34-36)
For what it’s worth, there are no caveats on what Jesus says here. He doesn’t say, it doesn’t count if you invited strangers in because you were desperate and needed their help. He simply says, you invited strangers in. Period. They were strangers – you trusted people you didn’t even know to come and pray with you and trusted God with the outcome.
You invited them – you let them join your meeting and then you let them ‘be in charge’, trusting God for the outcome, simply if they asked, by unmuting their mike.
You invited them in – you let strangers pray about a family situation which is very personal and close to your hearts, risking the possibility they might pray prayers with words that could hurt when you were already in a lot of pain. You trusted God that the words they bring in prayer would be honored by him. No matter what the specific words are. Since he hears the cry of our hearts.
This verse shows how close God is in these times of prayer and that he is surely very close to the family during these prayer meetings
The LORD is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. (Psalm 34:18)
By the way, the author of Hebrews says
Be not forgetful to entertain strangers: for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. (Hebrews 13:2)
So there might be angels at these prayer meetings!
Anyway, I came to these meetings on and off. I was a stranger yet I was invited and welcomed in.
I didn’t know how much I needed to be welcomed into a Christian community again. I didn’t realize how much I needed Christians to trust me to pray with them. I didn’t realize how much I needed them to treat me the same as everyone else – no special rules, no exclusions based on past history, no favoritism. I didn’t realize how much I needed Christians to say to me “thank you, that was a beautiful prayer”, indicating that somehow in spite of everything, even now I am not ‘an outsider’.
I found out when I prayed, that I had indeed needed all of those things, in order to heal from my experiences in other Christian communities.
I so appreciate that there is no judgment and no prejudice, only compassion and humility at these prayer meetings. On the day I prayed there was disarming honesty, which helped me in turn to be brave and ask if I could pray out loud. When we are honest about what we’re going through, it can be a huge blessing to others because a) they realize it’s not just them and b) they realize maybe they can be just as honest. Even out loud in a group.
Being honest out loud with others in a safe community can be incredibly healing. When we own up to our worst fears and secret shame (when appropriate) others can be Jesus to us and help us to know it’s ok, we are forgiven, there is enough grace even to cover those things.
God always loved humans. He didn’t stop loving them because of any of those things. Genesis 3 is a very sad story – not primarily because Adam and Eve ate the fruit, because let’s face it, eating fruit is not really a big deal. It’s a tragic story because it made Adam and Eve afraid of God. After eating they hid and they had trouble being honest with God. They didn’t realize God loved them enough that it would work out ok if they were honest. God kind of had to force it out of them and then they made excuses instead of owning responsibility and simply saying “Yeah, you’re right. I did exactly what you asked me not to do. There was only one thing you asked me not to do – and I went ahead and did exactly that! I’m sorry. That was wrong of me.”
The day after I prayed in the online prayer meeting I went back again, just to listen. I was thinking the prayer might be a one time thing but who knows. In any case I’ve been to the meetings often just to listen to the updates. Some of my extended family is very close to their family so I wasn’t 100% a stranger, to be honest. But I hadn’t met most of the family.
That day was unexpectedly happy one – I mean, I have never seen the family as happy since I’ve been at these meetings. I thnk they were were relaxed and happy because God is doing miracles and things are going well and the situation is easier than it was.
The situation is not over by a long way but things are going well enough that they can take a breath, relax, smile, laugh, worry a tiny bit less. On that day the family showed how it’s possible to have joy in the midst of very difficult circumstances – the type that other people pray desperately would never come upon them.
I believe this family is like Job, who said “when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.” I believe I saw the beauty of that gold shining in the meeting through their joy in spite of everything.
My husband once read a book which said “If you want to know how you’d feel if something happened to you, go find someone it happened to already and ask them how they feel.” We are afraid of terrible things happening and I think we are afraid it would take away our happiness forever if those things they happened to us.
Being around people in the midst of a very challenging situation who can find hope and joy in the midst of adversity and still smile, sometimes, in spite of the pain, gives me hope that I can get through my own less challenging situations. The joy that day blessed me and gave me hope.
By the way, if I’d had to sign an “I believe blah blah blah” to go to these meetings I never could have gone. Those simply don’t work for me anymore. So it blessed me that I could just show up, without any checks at the door which would have been too painful or difficult for me to undergo.
Since there was no test and these are simple Spirit-led meetings I believe the Spirit drew me in a very simple and pure way. Galatians 5:25 doesn’t quite say this but, I realized for me there is something that is like being in tune with the Spirit. Like when you tune an instrument and then it’s in harmony with everything else. I realized that in spite of everything and all my goodbyes I can feel this. It is real and it is not scary. I believe that hearing this will not make me ill.
For me, this is new and recent. It is like the invisible thread from the great-grandmother that guided the princess home in The Princess and the Goblin by George MacDonald. That’s rather a weird book but he was a very wise man and I think that’s a great picture of being spirit-led.
I also realized when writing this that there’s something so pure about wanting to offer a gift to someone in need that it sort of transcended everything – all my doubts and everything. I just sort of knew it was ok, Somehow.
For me, these meetings have been like this –
To what shall we liken the kingdom of God? Or with what parable shall we picture it? It is like a mustard seed which, when it is sown on the ground, is smaller than all the seeds on earth; but when it is sown, it grows up and becomes greater than all herbs, and shoots out large branches, so that the birds of the air may nest under its shade.” (Mark 4:30-32 NKJV)
In other words these have been a little piece of Heaven on earth for me. They feel inviting and warm and safe like big shady tree with strong branches, for me to land in and build my nest and stay a while.
My heart breaks for this family and what they have been and are going through. I would never say thank you God for bringing me something amazing out of their suffering. That would be cruel and unfair. I can’t believe God would ever hurt one person to bless another.
So I do trust that somehow this family will see all those Bible promises about people being who suffer rewarded come true for them. I do hope they will continue to be rewarded with more miracles in their own particular situation. I would be so so happy to see that.