I answered my phone at work one morning last October. A call I’d been dreading. “Susan, you need to drive down to the city right away,” Mom said. “The doctors don’t think your father will make it through the night.” My 83-year-old father had slipped on wet leaves near his home in Brooklyn and had hit his head on the sidewalk. He was rushed to the hospital with a fractured skull and brain trauma. The doctors did surgery, but Pop went into seizures and had two severe heart attacks.
I’m a prayer associate for Guideposts Peale Center in Pawling, New York, about 75 miles north of New York City. I train volunteers who serve on the phone line and who write prayer responses on our website, OurPrayer.org. I love my job, seeing daily the power of prayer in others lives. Now I needed to see that power in my life. I sent out an urgent prayer request on the website through my church. Then I drove to the hospital. I found Pop in a coma, his face bruised and swollen, but I hoped somehow he could hear. I whispered in his ear, “Everyone I know is praying for you.”
For five days I sat by Pop’s side, but there was no change. Any hope he’d come out of the coma grew dim. I knew he was in God’s care, but I longed to hear his voice. At the end of the week I had to head home. I bent down and whispered, “Pop, let’s pray together.” I began the Lord’s Prayer. Suddenly Pop’s nurse touched my back. I looked up, and she pointed to my father. He was mouthing the words, his lips moving with mine!
Three weeks later I got another call, a happy one. Pop was awake, but confused about what had happened. I filled him in, telling him about everyone praying for him. “I know, Susan,” he said. “I could hear them.” Pop made a full recovery. Not long ago he took Mom on a trip to Hawaii, leaving me with one more example of the power of prayer.
