Reflection This Week
ALL? NO. WHAT

   There are times in our lives when what we have to do is simply let go and let God. That is never easy given our innate need to try to control what is happening in our lives. We want to do all we can do. What we often discover is that there is so little we truly can do because the situation is larger than our expertise. Sometimes that still does not prevent us from messing around where and when we should not.

   In the end, hopefully before we have caused too much damage, frayed too many nerves and said or done something foolish, we do what we should have done from the very beginning: we let go and let God. Yet, letting go and letting God causes some anguish even when we willingly do so from the very beginning because we have immediately realized that the situation is completely out of our hands and we have already done all we could do.

   We find ourselves at our wits end and say to anyone listening or to no one in particular, “”I guess all I can do is pray.” All? No, pray is what I must do, what I can do. It is not as if prayer is something less, something we resort to when all else fails. Pray is what we are to do whenever. When we are the parent, the patient or the surgeon, pray is what we can do. We pray to God that our will is God’s will.

   Like Jesus in the Garden, so with us. We want our will to be done, our will being no suffering, no pain; and if suffering and pain, not too much and not for too long; and at the end resurrection and new life. So we pray. We pray hard and long. We enlist as many people as we can from across the pew to across the street to across the world to pray with us and for us. And they do.

   To be sure, I know all this. I’ve known it all along. To be honest, there are times when I have said, “I’ll pray for you” or “I’ll keep you in my prayers” almost as if they were throwaway lines. Like others I’ve also said to myself, “All I can do is pray” as if praying were certainly not as important as the work the surgeon, for instance. I knew better. I certainly know better, understand better, now that I have had to totally let go, let God and depend on the power of prayer in a very, very personal way.

   We preachers are always quick to note that perhaps the main reason why we can relate to Jesus on a very personal level is that Jesus lived and died, suffered pain and anguish, loneliness and disappointment just like the rest of us. Jesus knows what it is to be human, to let go and let God, to pray to God with all his might that his will would be God’s will, and if not, that God would somehow lead him to resurrection and new life. And God did.

   I, too, now more than ever, know what it is to be human, to truly and immediately let go and let God, to rely on the power of prayer. Autumn’s brain tumor, successful surgery and continuing recovery have made me so much more aware of truths I have always taught, always believed and yet have not fully understood or experienced.

   As a parent, I would have preferred to have been the one with the tumor. As a priest, I have been reminded of what my faith is all about. As a person, I have been reminded that prayer is often not only all that I can do, it is what I must do.

   Thank you for your prayers, your continued prayers for Autumn. She truly felt them, felt surrounded by God’s presence, and still does. So do I.                                          WJP