Standing in the Need of Prayer....

When I was a kid, I loved to watch people play the piano, so I begged to take piano lessons. My grandma brought a piano. From then on I spent Saturday mornings going to piano lessons. I took lessons for six years. But, sadly playing the piano, just is not my gift. I can read the music, I can play the treble line, I can play the treble cleft line, I just can't play the whole thing at the same time. And if I have to move my hands, well, it just gets ugly quick! My gift is to be the listener. I can listen for hours.....

Even tho I will never, never, never play a piano in public....I do play in the privacy of my own world. I just sit down and play the song or two that I do know.....one of these is "Standing in the Need of Prayer". It is an old 'spiritual'. The version that I played is a simple strait forward  tune with strong words that spoke to me as a teen ager but speaks to me even more as a middle aged grandmother.

One of the great gifts that was freely given happened in Biloxi, Mississippi. We were there helping out after Hurricane Katrina. My job was to be the 'receptionist' in the free clinic at Bethel Lutheran Church that was providing medical care staffed by volunteer physicians, nurses, pharmacists, and counselors. I, of course was beating myself up because I could not provide counseling or medical treatment, or fix their houses, or take their hurt away....

So I served where I could, I was the receptionist. I was to pull files, refile the files that were done, greet the people, get them where they needed to be. As I became more comfortable in the role, I found my place and became more comfortable. I took it upon myself, to be a listener. It took no prompting, just is sitting down next to them and saying hello. I stood on holy ground as they talked about loosing family members, friends, and neighbors. No one talked about earthly passions, one woman just missed her neighborhood and knowing her neighbors. After the first day, I thought I had gotten into trouble, when the doctor asked who was staffing the waiting room....Whatever was happening he wanted it to continue because people were coming in to see him in happy moods.

One afternoon, I lost one of the people sitting in the waiting room....I went to find her. I found her playing the baby grand piano in the sanctuary of the church. There was no printed music. Just her, God, and the most beautiful sounds I have ever heard....the song? "Standing in the Need of Prayer"

Standing in the need of prayer.....how often to we find ourselves in that spot?!? Well, I am finding myself in that very spot, yet again.....I am feeling great but the cancer has come back. The details of what that means are unclear. We don't know how many treatments, or how my body will react, or if it will work. I was accepted into a research study/drug trial. I am in the section where I will take the new treatment and it is in a pill form with less side effects.

While this is not the news that I had hoped for, it is on the positive side of bad news.

We continue to live in hope. There is good news in all of this.....the doctors think that it is a slow moving cancer. It is in one place, it has not spread. They have been keeping an eye on all of this for a year an a half.....it responded to the chemo therapy the last time, so hoping that it works again. The treatments will begin the first week of November. That is the good news....

We all stand in the need of prayer....not just for when the news is difficult.  But also to celebrate life or to just talk with our creator.

Standing in the Need of Prayer, today and always!