What’s a #PrayerStory?

I love hearing people’s prayer stories — how they put their faith on the line with Jesus (or, in some cases, with his mother, who is also a powerful pray-er. Kind of like my mother). And somehow, their prayers were answered, often above and beyond what they originally asked.

Now, God is not some great Bubblegum Ball Machine in the Sky. You can’t force his hand with selfish demands, like a petulant teenager. “Okay, God, either you give me ____ or I won’t speak to you again” won’t wash with the Almighty. Or his mother.

But God is a patient Father — a patient adoptive father at that. He knows that the bonds of trust take time to build, and that they will be tested. And so, he often goes the extra mile for those who come from hard places, who are looking for him to connect with them in sincereity and truth.

And when those answers come … those, my friend, are #PrayerStories.

Let me give you two such stories, one of which I told recently on Fr. Edward Looney’s podcast “How They Love Mary.” He had invited me to come and talk about my friend Fr. Ubald (+), and what it was like to help him write his book Forgiveness Makes You Free. I confessed that the first time I met Fr. Ubald, I was a little weirded out. It was at a WINE pre-conference gathering, and as I watched him usher in the Holy Spirit and saw several good Catholic women I knew “resting in the Spirit” on the floor … I panicked. I had seen this kind of thing as a Protestant, and had no idea Catholics sometimes prayed this way, too.

But my “inner nudge” told me to stay and be patient. And then I heard him tell the story of how he survived the Rwandan Genocide, in which more than a million people died in just 100 days, including thousands of his own family, friends, and parishioners. Miraculously, he survived … and spent the next 27 years working to bring peace to his country, and healing to the rest of the world. His healing gifts became so well known, in fact, that when he died of COVID-19 complications on January 7, 2021, at his funeral people were already asking how soon his cause would be open.

A little selfishly, I had an entirely different question. Which brings me to my second #PrayerStory: For as long as I’ve known him, I’ve asked Fr. Ubald to pray for my daughter’s healing. When we foster-adopted Sarah and her brother in 2005, we had no idea what a long, hard road was ahead. But now her Bipolar II symptoms, combined with other disabilities, make her future uncertain. So at the wake I approached his casket, touched my rosary to his hands, and said, “Okay, Fr. Ubald. Now you’ve got God’s ear. Pray for my daughter. Ask God to heal her.”

It’s a #PrayerStory I’m longing to tell — and one I suspect I’ll be telling for a very long time. Because very often healings don’t take place instantly, or in the way we expect. Some healings take a lifetime of incremental infusions of grace.

What’s YOUR #PrayerStory?

It’s a modern miracle: A JCP photographer who could make me relax and look good! (Thanks, Jennifer!)