Why believe in prayer?

Enjoying the cool air of my first post Covid lockdown run, on Wednesday I found myself pressing on. ‘I’ll just turn back in 5 minutes I thought’, for the freedom felt so wonderful.

Then it happened.

The black ice, the fall, the seemingly slow-motion-twisting and the decisive, unforgiving ‘snap’. Just like that, a broken fibular, tibia and ankle bone in my left leg. In that moment, the excruciating pain in my floppy ankle told the whole story.

Three days later I find myself still laying here in a Covid-ravaged hospital ward, following an operation of pins and plates to re-build my lower leg. As a keen runner and active mum, the doctors say I’m facing months of rehabilitation. And I find that gutting.

And yet… I simultaneously find myself feeling so very thankful.

I know so many are far worse off right now – and my heart and prayers go out.

But there’s something else I’m so deeply grateful for: Here I find myself laying in the same hospital I did exactly 5 years ago, following an advanced cancer diagnosis.

And the reality is that back then, even with so many faith-filled prayers, some would say not all those prayers were always answered.

Afterall… those prayers DIDN’T;

• Prevent the issue, what the Doctors diagnosed, or the subsequent complications
• Prevent the pain, the operations and the toll on everyone around
• Prevent the virtual-prison, the cost and all that entailed.

In truth, the list could go on.

But what those prayers DID enable was something else far greater than all my own positive thinking could ever manufacture.

It was true then – and it’s true now.

And this week, what all those prayers I’m so very thankful for DID do was this;

• Change a rising fear and panic of ‘what if’, to be stilled into a perfect, floating peace of calm.
• Change the frenzied atmosphere of a Covid ward in chaos, to be reset by the deep sense of God’s presence – knowing I wasn’t alone.
• Change the vulnerability of endless hospital corridors and insecurity from days of ‘not knowing’, to give way to a comfort – dare I even say, pre-surgery joy, so soothing and somehow re-assuring; That total healing is on its way.

I know it’s a very personal thing, but how do I know prayer works?

In short, because even when I can’t see it, I sense it.

Not always in the external circumstances – but more importantly, internally – sometimes slowly, quietening those voices and thoughts of inner warfare. Simply put, if prayer didn’t work, I would never find the peace, strength and total assurance only the power of God within can bring.

Five years ago, after many ups and downs, there was living proof in the infallible word of the living God: That not one of His promises return to us void. And here I am once again, believing the same will be true once more.