I know that prayer works. Not always with the answer I desire, but I know that God hears and is indeed working all things together for my good. I recall two major prayer events that changed my life; there have been many more, but these are the two that cry out for attention because the results have been powerfully long-lasting. One was personal and affected my work. The other was on a Sunday evening in 1982 when the elders came to pray at my Sparrow Hospital bedside.

Two weeks’ prior, I started getting weaker and weaker and was diagnosed with Guillian-Barré Syndrome, a neurological disorder that presents with ascending paralysis. The treatment for Guillian-Barré is called “expectant therapy”- they expect you are going to get better eventually and they want to keep you alive until you do. I had been on a ventilator that was doing my breathing for me, since Friday afternoon. The machine’s setting was initially too strong and had caused a lung to collapse; I had pneumonia; and my breathing was difficult. The doctors decided they would do a tracheostomy on Monday morning, placing the ventilator tube in my throat to provide oxygen better.

Having the elders get together to pray for a sick person, as commanded in James 5, was a fairly new thing at our church.  I was actually one of the elders at the time and did not have much experience as the prayee OR the prayer. Our friend Glen encouraged Diane to ask the elders to pray, and they arrived shortly after eight o’clock, just as visitors’ hours were ending.

I don’t remember what they prayed. I think there was some laying on of hands and maybe making the sign of the cross on my forehead with oil. The amazing thing was that God chose to work in a dramatically positive way that night. After prayer, the elders commented that I had an ashen look when they arrived, but was pink when they left. The next morning the pulmonary specialist looked at the new x-ray and saw enough improvement to call off the tracheostomy. It was another month in the hospital and five months off work, but the improvement began with the elders’ prayer.

The medical staff exercised expectant therapy. The elders exercised expectant prayers. I thank and praise God regularly for his healing and comforting mercy he exercises for his people.