The amazing thing is that there is blessing both in being the one who helps and being the one who is helped, and I'm very grateful that I've had the opportunity to experience both sides of that (although if I'm being honest, I would really like to get back to the side of being the one who helps!).
This is a good lesson for all of us, including my children. After I was hospitalized in March, some staff and parents at our school decided that they would provide lunch for my boys for the rest of the school year. What a generous gift and blessing that was for us, and I was so humbled to see how much our boys and our family are loved and taken care of by our school community. It was challenging at first for my boys to receive food from their classmates. It was hard for me as a mom to let other people take care of my children. But I realized that I needed to allow other people to be blessed by giving to us (plus, we really needed the help!). This was as much about us as it was about the blessing these families would receive by helping us. That's not to say that we should sit back and just let others do things for us all the time so they can be blessed! I'm saying that when we're in need, even though it's sometimes difficult to accept help, we don't want to "steal" someone else's blessing of helping us.
This has been especially true for me when it comes to prayer. I have realized over the course of this cancer battle that prayer is so important. Prayer isn't just wishing something would happen or thinking good thoughts. Prayer is actually talking to God, the Creator of everything. How amazing is it that we can talk to our Heavenly Father?!
There are so many Scripture passages on prayer, and I won't even pretend to understand them all. What I want to focus on is the blessing of praying for each other. We are commanded in Scripture over and over to pray - for each other, for wisdom, without ceasing, with joy, with thanksgiving, in faith. Prayer is pretty much a given for the believer in Christ. Yet how much time to we really spend talking with God? And how often do we tell our brothers and sisters in Christ what we need prayer for?
This struck me again yesterday. I've really been struggling this week with my chemo side effects. It's been a really rough week. My go-to when I'm struggling is to cocoon and not speak to anyone until I feel better. But yesterday afternoon as I was lying on the couch feeling nauseated and barely able to move, I thought, "Why am I not asking people to pray for me?" If ever we need prayer, it's when we're struggling. I put out a quick blurb on my cancer Facebook page asking for prayer. It's a humbling thing to do, but I think we as believers need to do it. James 5:16 says, "Therefore confess your sins to each other and PRAY FOR EACH OTHER so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective." How can we pray for each other if we don't know what each other is going through? I'm not saying that everyone needs to announce everything on social media, but we should all have a few people we can go to when we need prayer so that we can lift each other up. It's amazing how much better I felt just reading people's encouraging comments after I posted my prayer request, plus my side effects have subsided today, and I feel a lot better physically.
Praying for each other is important in so many ways. It allows us to connect to each other and bless each other. It allows us to come into God's presence and present our requests to Him. It builds community among believers - it's hard to be angry with someone when we're praying for him or her! It humbles us - asking for prayer is hard! It draws us closer to God. As we spend time with Him, the things of this world don't seem quite as important.
Another thing I've learned in this season of having to depend on people to help me is that I'm not quite as useless as I thought. I can still pray, which is a huge thing! So even if I can't volunteer very much at school or work or cook meals for people or do much housework or bake cookies for church (okay, I'm sounding pretty useless here!), I can still lift others up in prayer. I can still talk to God and spend time with Him. So I can still hopefully be a blessing to others as I continue to learn to humble myself and allow them to bless me as well.
One of my favourite passages of Scripture is Hebrews 10:19-25:
"And so, dear brothers and sisters, we can boldly enter heaven's Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By His death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God's house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting Him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ's blood to make us clean, and our bodies have been washed with pure water. Let us hold tightly without wavering to the hope we affirm, for God can be trusted to keep His promise. Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works. And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of His return is drawing near."
What a beautiful picture of the hope we have in Christ, of our confidence in prayer, and of what we as believers should be doing.
