Thursday, January 1, 2009

Ever prayed for help and gotten it?

I have. In fact, it happens all the time.

About two weeks ago, on a snowy and stressful Sunday, it happened again.

I sat in my car in the driveway with my little boys buckled into their seats in the back and offered a prayer to Heavenly Father that despite the fact that Jeremy couldn't go to church with us, and despite the fact that little Johnny was super tired, that I'd have the help I needed to get through the day with a positive feeling. That everything would go smoothly. That I might even be able to learn something from church or help someone else learn something, too.

Then I began the 5 minute drive to church. Like I said, it was snowy, and I was feeling stressed.
I pulled into a parking space and saw that my little one had fallen asleep and that the parking lot was covered in snow and ice. Hmm. Two bags to carry in, two little boys in big coats (one of whom is asleep), icy pavement, high heels. Not sure how I was going to manage. I thought, "I'm going to have to go in and ask someone to come out and help me."

I turned off the car and got out. As I turned around, I saw that someone was already walking toward me. He said "Do you need some help?" Apparently, he had seen me pull in, known my car, known I didn't have my husband with me to help. But here's the remarkable thing to me. He knew those things. Big deal. The next part is the big deal. He got up from his seat on the couch in the foyer of the church and walked out into the snow and offered me his help.

How many times have I known someone needed help and not done anything about it?

But that's beside the point. That person who helped me did not know about the prayer I had offered just minutes before. But he was (in part) the answer to that prayer, the beginning of that day going well despite everything (including my attitude) that was stacked against it.

Someone out there is probably saying "That guy could have and probably would have helped you even if you hadn't prayed."

Maybe that's true. People are good. They want to help out. They can see a need on their own and act on it. Of course.

But here's why that's not the whole story. Two and a half hours later, I sat listening to a woman teaching about unity. She said a lot of things that I needed to hear, but she said something that seems, in retrospect, to be unrelated to her lesson: "Sometimes, when you are feeling really down, someone comes along and gives you just enough of a boost to help you go on again." I heard her say this and I immediately thought of this person who had helped me that very day. Sure, I wasn't so down I couldn't go on, but her words connected something for me that needed to be connected.

This guy who helped me carry my stuff across the snowy parking lot, helped me get my kids' coats off so we could go into the Sacrament meeting. This guy didn't know what he was doing. He didn't know that I was feeling low, discouraged, picked on, stressed. He just knew he thought he ought to come out and help me.

Yes, I was very happy to see him walking towards me across the parking lot. I was almost shocked to hear his offer of help. And I thought then, "What a blessing! I'm so grateful!" But I didn't connect then, just minutes after I'd offered the prayer, that his appearance was just the thing I had been praying for. (I was too busy worrying about a sleeping boy and an icy ground to think about it). In fact, I didn't even know, when I offered that prayer, the kind of help I would need. And I didn't know how heartening it would be to me to get that help without having to ask for it.

So the thing that came to me and made me weep two and a half hours later, when that teacher said those words, was that someone else did know. I sent my prayer up knowing that I couldn't do that day without help. And He who heard that prayer knew just the kind of help I would need. Only the One who knew what help I needed could have given the nudge to the person who could and would stand up, walk out the church doors, and give it.

And then, through the Holy Ghost, after my stressed-out, bad attitude had had sufficient time to chill out and be replaced by a peaceful desire to learn, He helped the truth about what had happened to click in my brain and resonate in my heart.

And I knew then, as I sat on a mauve cushioned folding chair and wept, that my prayers are heard and answered by the God of the Universe. I've known this truth so many times in my life. Felt it and testified of it and believed it. Yet I was still amazed to know it again that day.