After dropping the kids at school this morning, I was on my way to the coffee shop (yep, I’m still addicted to my mochas), listening to the Bert Show on my local radio station, Q100. I like this morning show because they talk about random things going on in their lives and I can either relate to them or laugh at their situations. This morning, Bert, the namesake of the show, asked a question that is interesting to me, mainly because I have struggled just the same as he.

He has a friend with cancer. Unsure of how widespread the cancer is, the friend has undergone a test to find out. Today the friend is receiving his results. Basically, this friend will find out today if he lives or dies.

Bert’s dilemma is this (I’m paraphrasing what he said on the radio); Bert said, as a budding Christian, I want to pray for my friend, but I’m unsure what to pray for. On the one hand, I want to pray for his healing, and on the other, I feel like God has a plan for my friend, so it doesn’t feel right praying for intervention into what that plan may be. Maybe my friend is supposed to die and that is God’s plan.

The advice from the two other hosts, Kristin and Jeff, were to pray for peace, comfort and strength. A caller called in and said to pray for the doctors to be able to read the results correctly.

Apparently, the friend has already been through a round of incorrect readings. From what I can gather, it sounds like the poor guy has been on the roller coaster ride of his life, literally.

Like I said, I have also struggled with how I feel on this issue. Do I pray for healing? Is it OK to ask God to go against His plan if it means I get to keep in this life someone I love?

I have been to meditations called “healing circles” where everyone meditating pictures a person who is sick being healed – healed by God. I didn’t feel like I was doing anything wrong, or against God’s plan when I was doing it.

But still, when it comes to personal prayer, I’ve struggled, asking myself the same question, Is it OK to say to God, Please heal this person I love.

I didn’t know how I felt until the caller said to pray for the doctors to read the tests correctly. Suddenly, I was mad. I started talking to the radio, and I even tried to get Siri, from my iPhone, to call the Bert Show. Siri doesn’t know Bert’s number, by the way.

“Pray all you want for the doctors to read the results correctly, but now you are dealing with MAN! HUMANS who have FREE WILL,” I yelled. I immediately thought, praying for this will not get you anywhere. In my heart I felt that praying for something like doctors reading tests correctly is not prayer at all, but asking the doctors to not be doctors. I thought to myself, Doctors are humans in white coats doing the best they can to heal us, but in the end, they are human.

It was like something took me over, and I felt so strongly that her advice was in vain to the truth of what praying is about. It was a feeling that surprised me. And sitting here writing, I still feel the same. Although, I guess if it behooves someone, it wouldn’t hurt to pray for the doctors to read the tests correctly. It just wouldn’t be my choice of prayerfulness.

That’s not really the point, although it is what got me involved. And, I love that Bert has me thinking the question this morning, What do I believe of prayer and how do I use prayer in my life?

I have actually read books on the subject. Sermon on the Mount, by Emmet Fox is a book about The Lord’s Prayer. Many books on lovingkindness give prayer suggestions. One such prayer is, may there be peace in my life, may there be peace in the life of my family, may my community feel peace, may the world feel peace. In other words, it’s a kind of prayer ripple, starting with you and going out, out, out to encompass the whole of our world, and even our Universe. It’s a connectedness from the single to the infinite.

But, pondering my personal prayers and how I use prayer, here’s where I am today.

I know first is gratitude. I want to constantly let the Universe know how grateful I am for life; the Life Force that lives within me. I find myself silently saying, Thank You, a lot. It just comes to me in a moment and I express it. Nothing thought out, it’s just there and I say it – sometimes out loud and other times silently. It can be when I hear my kids actually getting along or just looking at a tree that I find fascinating. No matter what the “it” is, “it” is Life and I say Thank You.

Next, I do pray for what I want, but it is more in the form of intentions I set. Like a prayer vision board. For example, I might pray to God and let God know my intention is to write, because I believe with my whole heart this is what You intend for me. I want You to know I’m here, listening to my “gut” and heeding my intuition that You have given me. I hear in my Heart this calling and I intend to fulfill my dream, which I feel is a reflection of You, God. Oh, and thank you for this calling!

I also pray a ton about motherhood. I pray, pray, pray that my kids’ psychology bill will be low later in life and they will both be who they came into this life to be. In motherhood, my go to is The Prophet poem, On Children. I pray I can be that parent.

This leaves praying for others. I find I see the beauty in people much more than in my past. I can look at someone and know in my heart they are precious. I see we really are One.

At some point, the huge gap in between someone’s teeth stopped being something that made me think, “Why don’t they get it fixed,” so much as, “Look how precious they look when they smile at me with this difference.”

I’m using a superficial difference on purpose, but it could be anything. My point is, I don’t pray for people to be any different than they are. They are as they are meant to be. It’s not my job or right to change them. Everyone’s journey is their own.

What if this person is a drug addict? Is that God’s plan? I believe not. In this case, I would say, God, please restore this soul to its soul state. Please allow this dead person to awaken to Life. To you. Deliver compassionate people into this Life before it is too late.

In my world, drug addiction is like cancer. Why would I pray for the drug addict to be healed and not the cancer patient?

Jesus healed the sick and infirmed. He even brought back the dead. Why would Jesus intervene for God and not ask us to do the same. Didn’t Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, He that believes on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go to my Father.” (John 5:19)

If Jesus was a healer, and Jesus was to be the Christian example of living life to God’s fullest, wouldn’t God ask us to be healers also? And if we can’t directly heal, as Jesus could, wouldn’t we then be asked as healers to pray that Jesus intervene to our Father to heal our loved ones of any and all afflictions holding them from being the best human reflection of God?

Cancer is a killer and we are meant to live a full life – for God’s sake. Anything that disrupts that is not God’s will. It is Dis-ease in life. There are many who believe in the power of intention and this theory of Dis-ease, which translates into a life of disease, like cancer. See Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life. Another example is Feelings Buried Alive Never Die. Both of these books have “dictionaries” of health issues and what causes diseases. Others believe we came into this life with baggage from past lives and they can be healed.

No matter what your beliefs are, I now know that I believe in praying for healing. In my heart, I believe God would have me intervene and say, give me my loved one! And I say this knowing that any time I pray something in Love, God smiles at me; touches my cheek with that wind I feel which comes out of nowhere I can see. Even when I don’t get my way, I know God smiles when I ask for anything with a pure heart of Love.

So today, I pray that Bert’s friend be healed of his cancer in full. I pray he goes forward to live a complete life with his wife and child. I pray that even if he is eaten up in cancer and is predicted to die tomorrow, that Jesus come to this man to heal him in body and soul. Show us humans how it’s done! Give him Life, even in the face of death. I call on all of the healers out there in our world, and in the next, to heal, heal, heal this man of his dis-ease. And so it is, and it is so.

Now, should this friend have to give up this life and go to God, I will then pray, God, I pray you accept this soul into your grace to watch over his loved ones in this difficult transition. I pray for your Love to envelope this man and heal his dis-ease from this life; that he may be there for his loved ones, to look over them and guide them and keep their presence in this Life in grace. Amen.